Basketball City on South Street in Lower Manhattan buzzed with excitement on July 26 as the New York Dominican Officers Organization, the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau, the Police Athletic League, the New York City Police Foundation, and NYPD Blue Chips hosted the third-annual Det. Jason Rivera & Det. Wilbert Mora Basketball Classic.
The tournament honors the legacy of the detectives who were ambushed and killed while responding to a domestic violence call in Harlem on Jan. 21, 2022. Rivera, just 22, died the same evening, while Mora, 27, who had been put on life support, succumbed to his injuries on Jan. 25. Both were posthumously promoted to NYPD detectives.
Rivera and Mora joined the NYPD to make a difference in young people’s lives and improve the relationship between the community and cops. Their love for basketball, associates said, inspired the event, encouraging friendly competition and building community relationships.
Forty police-run sports teams from around the country competed for the coveted trophy in the Boys Under 12, Girls High School, and Boys High School Championship divisions. In all, over 600 students from Houston, Manatee County, FL, Boston, New York, Buffalo, Suffolk and Nassau counties, and Newark, NJ, to name a few, participated in the action-packed day.
Team D.A.D. Elite Queens took home the trophy in the Girls’ High School Division. Victorious Youth emerged victoriously in the Boys’ under-12 division after beating the PAL team from Waterbury, CT, by 18 points in the finals. Their player Louis “Lou The Glue” Danzine was named MVP.
Suffolk County Team #3 took home the Detective Rivera High School Championship trophy after beating Manatee County in the final game of their bracket. The Detective Mora High School Championship trophy went to team Newark NJ PD after beating Nassau County #1 53-38 in the final game of their respective bracket. Newark player Lamear Singletary took home the coveted MVP trophy.
The tournament has grown substantially since its inception in 2022, when eight teams representing New York City’s eight patrol boroughs duked it out on the court. Police Officer Andre Jean-Pierre, the driving force and organizer behind the event, was excited to see how much it had grown.
“It shows that if you have a vision no matter what profession you do, and you stick with it, it’s possible,” Jean-Pierre said. “I want to see other police departments take the initiative and do something similar.”
Letricia Brown, a sergeant with the Houston Police Department, traveled with a team of 12 players from the Lone Star State to New York City. When Jean-Pierre reached out to her and explained the reason for the tournament, Brown said it would have been “hard” turning him down.
“[Jean-Pierre] explained that Detective Rivera and Detective Mora had a heart for the youth. They wanted to see things be better, and got out there and got their hands in the middle of it, and tried to make things better. When you have individuals like that, it’s hard to pass up because they left a legacy,” Brown explained.
NYPD brass, including First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella, Commissioner of Community Affairs Mark Stewart, and Assistant Commissioner Alden Foster, also took time out of their busy schedules to watch the young athletes duking it out in highly competitive games.
Stewart told amNewYork Metro it was great to see police departments from across the country unite to honor Rivera and Mora’s dedication and sacrifice, showing young people that the police department was a big family that never forgets their own.
“It is awesome because whenever we have an incident or tragedy, it is good that all law enforcement stays on the same page, and we recognize and we realize what our main focus is: it’s our youth, our community, and us,” Stewart said.
Foster added that Moya and Rivera were young officers when they made the ultimate sacrifice.
“[The tournament] shows that the Police Department was never going to forget them. But also, we don’t want our young people Mora and Rivera [were] protecting every single day never to forget them,” Foster said.
Det. Darnell Gatling, the co-founder of NYPD Blue Chips, a citywide year-round youth mentoring and sports program, said the event honored not only Mora and Rivera’s legacy but also their passion for serving as role models for young people in their community.
“The beautiful thing about this is we have kids coming from all over the country to play basketball, [and] they’re also meeting new people,” Gatling said.
NYPD Blue Chips alumni Saeni Watson joined the program as a freshman in high school. The college-bound Harlem resident said the program broke down barriers between cops and young people and kept him off the streets.
“At first, I just wanted to play sports. I wanted to go to the gym and get out of there. But now, I like to have conversations. I like to talk about things other than sports; it helped me become a better person overall,” Watson shared.
NYPD Sergeant Dennis Rodriguez, president of the New York Dominican Officers Organization, told amNewYork Metro the event was a scholarship fundraiser for children of fallen police officers in memory of Rivera and Mora.
“In the NYPD, we have a motto: We will never forget, and so in 20 years when I’m not around, I want this to continue every year, so these kids go get together, and who knows, maybe they want to become an officer, too,” Rodriguez said.
Emerald Health and GameChanger, a DICK’S Sporting Goods company, supported the event by donating food and refreshments for the players and families. GameChanger not only live-streamed the tournament, but its president, Sameer Ahuja, presented a $5,000 check for the Detectives Rivera & Mora Scholarship Fund.
NYPD Officers Tremaine Gooden, Shaquille McFarlan, and Daniston Swaby, members of the NYPD Finest Basketball team, said that besides honoring Rivera and Mora, the tournament also built a relationship with the community and the youth.
“Obviously, we’re here for these two detectives, and we get to be here for the kids, to show everybody that we’re more than just the uniform,” McFarlan told amNewYork Metro.
