In Memoriam

NEW YORK - Accompanied by the sounds of bagpipes and sobs, city officials, family members, and police on Sunday honored the lives of two officers who were shot to death a year ago while in their cruiser.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton dedicated two bronze plaques inscribed with the names of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos outside the entrance of Brooklyn's 84th Precinct. The officers were killed on Dec. 20, 2014.

Ramos, 40, a father of two, and Liu, 32, recently married, "were faithful to all that is good," Bratton said. "These memorial plaques will be mounted in the station house for all times, so that anyone that enters . . . will be reminded of their sacrifice."

A New York Police Department helicopter flew overhead in honor of the slain officers, and bagpipers played.

Hundreds of officers in dress uniform, many in tears, listened as Liu's father, Wei Tang Liu, bent in grief and sobbing as he spoke in Chinese about his only child. Liu's wife, Sandy, translated, breaking down as she spoke her father-in-law's words: "Before my son's death, I would hear his voice every day for the past 33 years of his life. I'd give anything to see him and hear his voice again."

A few miles away, just before 3 p.m. - about the time Ramos and Liu were ambushed - officials laid wreaths on the sidewalk near the spot where their police cruiser had been parked when they were shot at point-blank range through the car window.