Officer Ramon Santos fought to have his friend Officer Richard Lopez remembered with a street renaming in the Bronx
Photo courtesy of NYPD
Richard Lopez was tough as nails, according to his NYPD colleagues — something, they say, was exemplified in the Bronx resident’s final years during his battle with 9/11-related cancer.
On Friday Oct. 13, colleagues gathered at the corner of Randall Avenue and Cross Bronx Expressway to rename it “Richard Lopez Way” after the police veteran nearly five years after his death.. While the ceremony was an emotional one for Lopez’s friends and family, it was especially poignant for fellow cop Ramon Santos who helped pave the way for the moment.
According to Santos, he and Lopez shared a unique bond that took them from mere work colleagues at Bronx’s Police Service Area 8 to brothers.
“When I first walked into this place [Police Service Area 8] in 2005, he was the very first person I met. He was in the gym working out and I went in to introduce myself to him. And from there on, we clicked right away. We were like brothers from there on,” Santos told amNewYork Metro.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, Lopez had the harrowing duty of being posted in Staten Island where he was tasked with sifting through debris, personal belongings, and human remains.
“They had a conveyor belt where they had all this stuff and he remembers seeing things like body parts and fingers and legs, you know, like different body parts,” Santos said of Lopez. “He just told me how he spent countless days — weeks down there and didn’t get to see his family.”
In 2013, Lopez was diagnosed with cancer related to 9/11, beginning a five-year battle. During this time, Santos created and sold special challenge coins and t-shirts to help raise funds for his friend.
This fundraiser was even picked up by the cast of Blue Bloods and championed by the likes of actor Donnie Wahlberg who took…
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