By Police1 Staff
NEW YORK — A friend of a victim in last week’s school shooting in Florida was able to attend the funeral thanks to two New York troopers.
NBC News reports that 23-year-old Jordana Judson wanted to fly to Florida to attend the funeral of Meadow Pollack, who was one of 17 victims killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week. Judson said she began “hysterically crying” at New York’s LaGuardia airport when Troopers Robert Troy and Thomas Karasinski came to check on her.
Judson told the LEOs that she needed help finding a ticket to attend her friend’s funeral. Judson spoke with a JetBlue Airways agent and was told that a one-way flight would to Florida would cost $700, which she couldn’t afford. When the agent wasn’t able to accommodate her request to lower the price, the troopers stepped in.
“I look up, and the state troopers are standing there, and they’re both handing over their credit cards,” Judson recalled. “I’m telling them that they don’t have to do this. This is crazy. They said: ‘It’s already done. We want you to be home with their families. This is a tough time.’”
Judson said she was grateful to get an opportunity to grieve alongside Pollack’s family and her brother, who lives in Florida. Troy said he sympathized with her situation and that he felt “it was the right thing to do.”
“I know. I have five little sisters. If that was one of them, I’d want someone to help them out,” Troy said of Judson. “It was a sigh of relief. She was more in shock that we paid for her ticket.”