Will Tassos Tsakos’s Tragic Death Initiate A New Era of Peace and Hope?

By Nick Stamatakis 

“Why did God have to take away such a good father, husband, such an honorable citizen in every respect?” was the question in everyone’s thoughts today as “a sea of blue” gave every possible honor to the fallen hero, Tassos Tsakos (you can watch the video at the end of this post).  If we lived in Ancient Athens Tassos would definitely be a model citizen, “καλός καγαθός”, beautiful and virtuous…

Tassos was a model citizen in so many ways and a model member of the Greek-American community.  A graduate of St.Demetrios of Astoria High School, he grew up between New York and Greece.  He loved Greece so much that he returned there in his early 20s to serve one year of military service!… And he loved New York so much that he decided to offer his life as a police officer of the NYPD – instead of following the typical business path of most Greek-Americans (and as I understand his dad was in the restaurant business…) As a police officer, he showed numerous times that he cared, he looked at every New Yorker as if they were his brothers…

This wonderful human being, this good husband and father were killed last week by a drunk driver who happened to have been intoxicated not only by alcohol but also by the hateful rhetoric of BLM (you can read the story in our previous post here). As it so often happens in life, it takes a tragic death, just like Tsakos’s was, to have a huge effect on society and start making serious change.  If you watch the speeches from his funeral you will agree with me that it was a rare moment to see our leaders “shaken”: AB Elpidophoros was obviously moved by the tragedy and he did everything possible – if it was ever possible – to soothe the family’s pain with words of faith.  In Mayor DeBlasio’s and the Police Commissioner’s eulogies you could easily detect a determination to effect serious changes, changes that go beyond the already very tough DWI laws…

We can only hope that this will be the case here… Words cannot express the sorrow everyone in our community felt today. But one thing will definitely help: STOP the hateful rhetoric, STOP the divisiveness IN THE NAME OF TASSOS.  He never cared if the person he needed to help was white, black, yellow or brown.  He helped everybody with all his heart and all his power… HE SET AN EXAMPLE FOR ALL IN THIS CITY AND THIS COUNTRY – AN EXAMPLE WE ALL NEED TO FOLLOW.