A New York City cop is following in the footsteps of his father – a hero who died on 9/11 – by joining the NYPD’s elite Emergency Service Unit.
Joe Vigiano celebrated his ESU graduation Friday after joining the NYPD six years ago and is now assigned to Brooklyn’s Emergency Truck 7 — where his beloved father also spent his first years.
“His smile would have brightened up the whole room today,” Kathy Vigiano, a retired cop and Joe’s mom, told The Post of her late husband Joseph, whose firefighter brother John also perished in the terror attacks.
“I am proud, because Joe is a good cop, he was the top of his class in emergency-service school,” the mom said of her son. “But I am worried because of his new assignment, handling the most dangerous jobs in the Police Department.
Joe Vigiano, whose father died on 9/11, is with his son at his ESU graduation Friday. James Messerschmidt for NY Post“However, I do have some comfort knowing he is working with such experienced officers who also worked with my husband.”
Joe Vigiano told The Post on Friday, “I’m looking forward to working in the best unit in the NYPD and learning from the experienced officers in ESU.”
His father was assigned to ESU’s Truck 2 on Sept. 11, 2001, when he was killed while trying to rescue those trapped inside the World Trade Center complex. The dad’s FDNY brother John also perished in the horror.
Joseph Vigiano and his widow, Kathy, met while working in the NYPD’s 75th Precinct in Brooklyn.
Their son was 8 years old when his father died
Shortly before the terror attacks, Joseph Vigiano had his son made an ESU-style shirt with Truck 7’s numerals touchingly emblazoned on the collar.
Joe Vigiano is now also a staff sergeant in the US Marine Corps. Reserves and fought in Afghanistan.
Photos from the Friday’s ceremony, which was held at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, show Joe Vigiano grinning with his family and holding his own baby boy, named Joseph Vincent Vigiano II.
Also in attendance were the newly minted ESU member’s mom Kathy, his brothers – James, a fellow NYPD cop, and John, a college student – and their grandmother, Jan.
