NYPD Detective Killed By A Suicide Bomber In Afghanistan

Thousands of police officers are set to pack St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on Wednesday morning to pay their final respects to an NYPD detective and Air National Guard sergeant who friends and fellow cops called “Superman.”

Joseph Lemm, a 15-year NYPD vet and a technical sergeant with the Air National Guard serving his third tour of duty in the Middle East, was one of six Americans killed Dec. 21 when a suicide bomber rammed a motorcycle packed with explosives into Lemm’s patrol car in Afghanistan.

“He really was Superman,” Maj. John Torres, a chaplain with the Air National Guard, said Tuesday, according to The Journal News. “It’s hard not to smile when you recall his antics. It’s harder still to believe that he’s gone.”

Torres added: “He embodied honor to the end.”

Timothy Cardinal Dolan is slated to perform the funeral Mass at 10 a.m. and deliver a eulogy. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is also expected to be in attendance. Gov. Andrew Cuomo went to Lemm’s wake on Tuesday.

About 400 people attended a “ramp ceremony” when the plane transporting Lemm’s body landed in New York, The Journal News reported, and hundreds more attended Tuesday’s wake. A moment of silence was held during Tuesday’s NYPD graduation ceremony for nearly 1,200 new cops at Madison Square Garden, Newsday reported.

But those numbers are likely to be dwarfed by the sea of blue set to descend Wednesday on St. Patrick’s.

Following the funeral, a military helicopter flyover is scheduled before Lemm is buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, according to The Journal News.

Lemm, 45, was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan and had also served in Iraq. Relatives said his current deployment was set to be his last, NBC 4 reported.

 “A guy who does three tours overseas, protects his community as a police officer in a bad, dangerous part of America and then unfortunately his life is taken from him; that’s a hero,” Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino told PIX11.

A resident of West Harrison, Lemm served with the 50th precinct in the Bronx as a detective, a title he attained in January 2014.

“He got a lot of violent guys off the street…he got a lot of guns off the street,” Lemm’s commanding officer, Capt. William Kivlehan, said during a conference call with the press. “He was fearless.”

Lemm is survived by his wife, Christine, a son, Ryan, and daughter, Brooke.