#NYPD sergeants union picking up funeral tab for doorman who aided off-duty cop

Enlarge Image

Ed Mullins, president of the NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association
William Farrington

The NYPD’s sergeants union will pay for the funeral of a doorman who helped catch a man accused of punching an off-duty policewoman in the face on a Manhattan subway and died minutes later, The Post has learned.

“Here’s a guy that just went to work and did what was right in life — and it ultimately cost him,” Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said Thursday.

Angel Calderon, 54, left his job as a doorman on the Upper West Side late Monday night to take the No. 1 train uptown to his Bronx home.

When he got down to the platform at the West 86th Street and Broadway station, he ran into the man who had allegedly just repeatedly punched a 23-year-old, off-duty cop.

Calderon held the man down until cops arrived at the station around midnight. He then attempted to continue his journey to the Bronx, but was found on the train dead at the 72nd Street station.

His family said they hadn’t been given a cause of death, and that he had no known health problems.

They said they were worried about paying for his funeral because his sister died a month earlier of COVID-19 and they had borrowed to pay for hers.

News that the SBA was picking up the tab left Angel’s 78-year-old mom in tears, his sister, Lourdes Calderon, said.

“She started crying from happiness,” the sister said. “Angel was my mother’s baby. There were five girls and Angel was the son.”

Mullins said the union will cut a $15,000 check to the funeral home to cover the costs.

“It relieves a lot of our stress in this time of pain,” Lourdes, who lives in New Jersey, said. “What a relief! With everything we’ve been suffering with my sister’s death and now this?”

Percy Freeman, 43, was arrested for punching the cop and stealing her bag, according to cops and court documents. He is jailed at Rikers Island on a robbery charge.