Slain officer's final actions remembered as 'definition of self-sacrifice'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Prince George's County police Officer Mujahid Ramzziddin answered a neighbor's request for help in a domestic dispute and was slain by her estranged husband, authorities said. (Prince George's County Police via AP)
A slain Maryland police officer was remembered at his funeral Friday for a "selfless act in a time of selfish violence."
Officer Mujahid Ramzziddin, 51, of the Prince George's County, Md., police, was killed Wednesday while helping an abuse victim.
The hundreds of people who attended the funeral in Lanham, Md., included Ramzziddin’s family, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, police officers from across the region, and even strangers, the Baltimore Sun reported.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mujahid Ramzziddin's son Eric Tyler gives remarks about his father's life during the memorial serivice. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via AP)
“For many years, our brother woke up along with his fellow officers knowing this might be the last day they see their families,” said Imam Ali Tos of the Diyanet Center of America, where the service was held. “If this is not the definition of self-sacrifice, I don’t know what is.”
Prince George’s County Police Chief Hank Stawinski called Ramzziddin’s death a “selfless act in a time of selfish violence,” and regarded Ramzziddin a Muslim martyr.
Ramzziddin had been off duty Wednesday in his Brandywine neighborhood when a neighbor requested his presence. The neighbor was having the locks changed after a domestic dispute with her estranged husband, Glenn Tyndell, authorities said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After Tyndell confronted his wife, he shot Ramzziddin five times with a shotgun, then took Ramzziddin’s service weapon, and fled in an SUV. Police fatally shot Tyndell along Indian Head Highway during a confrontation in which he used Ramzziddin’s service weapon, police said.
Family and friends embrace during a memorial service for Mujahid Ramzziddin. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via AP)
“Without hesitation, he went out there to help that lady,” Ramzziddin’s son, Eric Tyler, said. “Today, my dad is a hero.”
The funeral concluded with a Muslim prayer – the Salat-al-Janazah – while Ramzziddin’s coffin was loaded into a hearse and transferred to Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Maryland.