Bowdoin College is waiving tuition for a sophomore student whose father was one of the New York City police officers killed Saturday in Brooklyn.
Bowdoin will provide full financial aid to Justin Ramos, who is scheduled to graduate with the Class of 2017, for the remainder of his education, school officials said Monday.
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“We are eager to welcome Justin back to campus for the start of our second semester in January, or whenever he is ready to return, and we will do everything we can to support him through this period,” Bowdoin spokesman Doug Cook said in a written statement.
The two officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were ambushed inside their patrol car Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn and shot to death. The suspected gunman, who had vowed in an Instagram post before the shootings that he would put “wings on pigs,” ran into a nearby subway station and committed suicide.
The suspect, Ishmaaiyl Brinsley, was black; the slain New York Police Department officers were Hispanic and Asian.
The killings came as police nationwide have been criticized in the wake of several incidents in which officers killed unarmed black men, including the chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island, a New York borough, and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Protests erupted after grand juries declined to charge officers in those cases.
Saturday’s shootings have led to tense relations between New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s police unions, which have criticized de Blasio’s comments on race relations and police violence. On Monday, De Blasio called for the protests over the deaths of Garner and Brown to be temporarily halted while the NYPD prepares for the funerals of Ramos and Liu, The Associated Press reported.
A charity founded by late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, the Silver Shield Foundation, had offered tuition assistance to the children of the slain officers.
“We are grateful for the Yankee Silver Shield Foundation’s offer to assist, but Bowdoin has it covered,” Monday’s statement said. The full cost of tuition, room and board at Bowdoin is about $60,000 a year.
The Silver Shield Foundation also offered financial aid to Ramos’ 13-year-old son, Jaden.
On Sunday, Bowdoin President Barry Mills posted a statement online notifying the Bowdoin community and announcing that Justin Ramos had left campus to be with his family in New York. “This is an unspeakable tragedy, and our hearts go out to Justin and his family. We are a close community, and we share in Justin’s pain and anguish,” the statement said.
Rafael Ramos was killed just weeks after celebrating his 40th birthday. A lifelong Brooklyn resident, he joined the NYPD in 2012 after working as a school security officer. He was married with two sons.
After the shooting, Justin Ramos, who has not yet declared a major at Bowdoin, posted a photo of his family on his Facebook page with the message “That’s love.”
His brother Jaden posted on Facebook about how much his father meant to him.
“He was the best father I could ask for,” Jaden wrote. “It’s horrible that someone gets shot dead just for being a police officer. Everyone says they hate cops but they are the people that they call for help. I will always love you and I will never forget you. RIP Dad.”
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