RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC. Gothamist Listen Live Donate News NYPD detective who wore his father's shield after 9/11 is now a sergeant By Charles Lane Published Aug 31, 2026 at 5:12 p.m. ET
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Eleven days before the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the NYPD on Monday promoted to sergeant a detective whose father was killed at the World Trade Center.
The legacy could continue for another generation if Sgt. Joseph Vigiano's 4-year-old son, Joey, fulfills his dream of becoming a police helicopter pilot. Vigiano's mother is a retired police officer who worked in the 75th Precinct in Brooklyn and his brother, James Vigiano, is a police officer on North Brooklyn’s community response team.
Asked whether law enforcement runs in his blood, 33-year-old Sgt. Vigiano said, "I guess you could say that."
His father, also Detective Joseph Vigiano, and his uncle, FDNY firefighter John Vigiano, both died in the attacks. Vigiano had been assigned to Emergency Service Unit Truck 7 and has worn his father's shield, number 4511, since he made detective. The NYPD's Emergency Service Unit lost 14 members that day, more than any other unit in the department.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch singled him out at the ceremony, saying the Vigiano family's history "continues to live within this department."
"After an unthinkable loss, the Vigiano family chose service again and again," Tisch said. "They knew its cost more intimately than almost any family could, and still they continued to answer the call."
Vigiano said he had not been expecting to make the sergeant's list so soon and was sad to leave Truck 7.
He remembered his father as a detective and volunteer firefighter who took him to Boy Scout meetings, sporting events and camping trips.
After his father's death, Vigiano said, officers at the 75th Precinct, where his mother worked, became a second family.
"I wanted to be part of that camaraderie," he said.
He will report to sergeant school at the academy for about five weeks before being assigned to a patrol command, officials said.
On the Sept. 11th anniversary itself, Vigiano said, he plans to go with his mother to Lower Manhattan to have breakfast at one of the ESU trucks with current and retired members.
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