NEW YORK (AP) – A former police detective who fought for the extension of health benefits for Sept. 11 responders was hailed as a hero at his funeral. Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Wednesday Luis Alvarez was among the responders who did not hesitate to serve following the terrorist attacks. David Alvarez says before his father “became an American hero, he was mine.”
Pallbearers in police uniforms carried his flag-draped coffin out of the church. Alvarez died Saturday of colorectal cancer. He attributed his illness to the three months he spent digging in that rubble after the 2001 terrorist attacks.