A Fateful Night in the Village: The Heroic Story of Marshalik and Pekearo
/A Fateful Night in the Village: The Heroic Story of Marshalik and Pekearo
By: Christian Durante
The night of March 14, 2007, was unseasonably warm to the point where spring, which was fast approaching later that month, had already arrived. It was a Wednesday, which meant, at least for me, a school night. I was in my last year as a 17-year-old senior in Fort Hamilton High School. It was an exciting year for me because I was debating what I wanted to do as a career. It was in that frame of mind that I decided to volunteer and become a NYPD Auxiliary Police Officer a few months earlier. I started a basic training course at my local NYPD 68th Precinct in October 2006 and graduated from the course with the highest grades in March 2007. On March 12th, I was privileged to receive my NYPD Auxiliary Police ID card and shield. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.
On that Wednesday night of March 14th, 2007, I was doing my homework in my bedroom. As was my normal practice, I had my television on tuned into the news. My Aunt Janet came into my bedroom to put away some of my clothes in my closet. Suddenly, a breaking news broadcast came on as the broadcast began with a huge banner across the television screen: “TWO NYPD AUXILIARY POLICE OFFICERS SHOT IN GREENWICH VILLAGE.” The news crew started showing aerial footage of the scene in Greenwich Village where the streets were filled with NYPD vehicles with their flashing red lights lighting up the night sky. It was at that moment that my aunt stopped what she was doing and started to sit down on a chair with a concerned look on her face.
While I was doing my homework earlier that evening in Brooklyn, a couple of miles away in Manhattan, Auxiliary Police Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik were on routine foot patrol in the crowded bustling neighborhood of Greenwich Village. The restaurants and bars were packed with crowds of people enjoying the spring-like weather. They were both young men who had struck up a friendship during their volunteering with the NYPD’s 6th Precinct Auxiliary Police Unit. APO Marshalik was in his 13th month of volunteer service while APO Peakero was in his fourth year of volunteer service. APO Nicholas Peakero grew up, worked and now also volunteered in Greenwich Village. APO Marshalik was a student at the nearby NYU campus. They both had strong, close connections to the neighborhood.
These young men were in the prime of their lives and felt the need to give back to the community. They both had dreams for the future. Peakero worked at a local bookstore with his girlfriend and wanted to be an author. Marshalik wanted to be a NYPD officer at first but had recently changed his career goal to that of being a public service prosecutor in a district attorney’s office.
Later that night in Brooklyn, as the news broadcast continued, my aunt and I sat in silence watching the news in disbelief. You could see she was concerned and looked at me with a look of, “What have you gotten yourself involved with”? Amazingly, she never said anything to me. Once the newscast ended, she left my room without saying a word, which was rare for her. Being from Brooklyn, she has been outspoken and never hesitates to voice her opinion. In this instance, her action spoke louder than words.
Around 11 p.m., another round of local newscasts followed with footage from the shooting scene in Greenwich Village and both the mayor and NYPD commissioner holding a press conference to a shocked, horrified city. For New York City, where everything is possible in a city that never sleeps, the execution-style killing of two young volunteer NYPD auxiliary police officers shocked even the most hardened New Yorkers who have seen it all. Even 17 years later, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s words during their news conference at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village echo to those who remember that long-ago fateful night:
“Tonight, was a horrible night for the New York Police Department and for our city. Two auxiliary police officers were killed in the line of duty, two men who volunteered their time to make our city the safest big city in America lost their lives helping to keep it exactly that way.”
“What this indicates is that this tragedy, as horrific as it was, could have been a lot worse and without the actions of our brave officers, most likely would have been.” -NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg
"The gunman fled down the street where he encountered unarmed volunteer auxiliary police officers Eugene Marshalik, 19 years old, and Nicholas Pekearo, 28 years old, two of the city’s unsung heroes who as part of our 4,500 Strong Auxiliary Police Program, serve without compensation, as the eyes & ears of this police department”.
“The fact that more lives were not lost is due in no small measure to Auxiliary Police Officers Nicholas Pekearo and Eugene Marshalik.”
-NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly
The next day, each member of the 68th Precinct Auxiliary Police Unit was called into the precinct stationhouse for a meeting with the commanding officer of the precinct and our auxiliary police coordinator. The NYPD was in shock like the rest of the city, and wanted to make sure all their volunteer auxiliary police officers were safe. To their point, all of us, auxiliaries, at least in the 68th Precinct, were asked if we wanted to stay on the volunteer auxiliary police force. The cold-blooded reality of this noble volunteering on patrol in uniform unarmed was made clear the night before and the NYPD wanted to do everything in their power to avoid a repeat incident. At the end of our auxiliary police unit meeting, not one of our fifty-nine volunteers including myself or my recent graduating auxiliary police class raised our hands to quit. We all decided to stay on to continue to serve the NYPD, our community and our city.
The hardest part of this surreal experience for me was preparing for the NYPD funerals of Marshalik and Pekearo. I never wore my uniform before and now for the first time ever, I was going to wear it at the funerals for two of my fellow NYPD auxiliary police officers including one, Eugene Marshalik, 19 years old, who was only two years older than me..I was getting ready to graduate high school in a few months and start college in the fall. Marshalik was in the midst of his college experience while I was about to start mine.
Although both funerals were tragic to witness, unless you wore the blue uniform, no one can tell you how it feels to be in a “sea of blue” all around you with thousands of officers standing at attention where you can hear only a “pin drop” and helicopters only a few hundred feet above flying in a “missing man formation”. It was surreal tribute to a fallen comrade in blue.
I never regretted volunteering for my community and the NYPD Auxiliary Police. It was a huge part of my life for many years. I “retired” from volunteer policing in 2019 as an Auxiliary Police Sergeant. In those twelve years of volunteer police service, I went from being a naive 17-year-old high schooler to a mature adult who has a federal career and is still volunteering, although for a different agency and volunteer mission these days.
On that fateful night in Greenwich Village, two young men in the prime of their lives, wearing the uniform of New York City auxiliary police officers, unarmed, except for a radio and nightstick, confronted pure evil, their heroism displayed in delaying a mad gunman’s shooting rampage in the crowded streets of Greenwich Village that night. It was a selfless act of heroism that saved many lives but cost them their own. As the 17th anniversary of March 14th, 2007 comes, many of those countless bystanders in the village that night along with the family, friends and colleagues of NYPD Auxiliary Police Officers Eugene Marshalik and Nicholas Pekearo will pause during a moment in their day to think of two heroes who by fate that spring-like night served as their guardian angels in blue.
Christian Durante is a retired volunteer NYPD Auxiliary Police Sergeant and is currently a federal employee. An alumni of John Jay College of Criminal Justice who graduated in 2013 with a Bachelors Degree in Police Studies & Minor in Cinema Studies, he continues working full-time & volunteering for his community with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.
