Ethan Curreri is a former New York City police office who arrested Laken Riley’s killer for a lesser crime six months before the illegal migrant was released — thanks to New York’s sanctuary policies — and moved to Georgia. Curreri was invited by President Trump to speak at the Angel Family event at the White House in February 2025, where the families of victims of criminal migrants gathered. Curreri is now a an officer with the Juno Beach Police Department in Florida.

I began my law enforcement career with the NYPD assigned to the 113th Precinct in South Jamaica, Queens. 

I’ve walked into many difficult scenes as a police officer, but nothing compares to standing in a room full of broken hearts at the White House.

On Feb. 23, 2026, President Donald Trump hosted the Angel Family Remembrance Ceremony honoring those who lost their lives at the hands of illegal immigrants. The President gave me the opportunity to share the story that connects me to the families of those victims.

In August 2023, my partner and I observed a male recklessly driving a motorcycle with a 2-year-old child.

The child was not wearing a helmet, and there were no safety restraints in place. We conducted a routine stop, identified the individual operating the vehicle, placed him under arrest for endangering the welfare of a child, and processed him accordingly.

It was a standard law enforcement action, one that officers make every day. I didn’t expect to hear anything further about it — until I did. 

In late February of 2024, I was watching the news about the brutal murder of a young Georgia nursing student. The suspect’s picture flashed on the screen, and I recognized him immediately.

It was Jose Ibarra, the man my partner and I had arrested and booked six months earlier. He was now identified as the man responsible for murdering Laken Riley while she was out for a morning run in a park near the University of Georgia.

My heart sank. I immediately replayed Ibarra’s arrest in my mind – what went wrong? Why wasn’t he in jail, or deported? Why was he in Georgia?

One thing I felt sure of is that I did my job, yet Laken’s life was taken because someone failed to do theirs.
Our justice system is a pattern of a failure. Individuals cycle through the system, face minimal consequences, and eventually reoffend. Many of these criminal encounters begin as routine, like the one I conducted, and they escalate and escalate until it’s too late.

It is the job of law enforcement to arrest criminals — but we need judges, district attorneys and politicians to send them to jail.

The conversation also cannot ignore immigration enforcement. The individual I arrested had entered the country unlawfully and, at multiple points, could have been returned to his home country. These missed opportunities matter. Federal agencies like ICE are tasked with an already difficult mission: identifying, detaining, and removing individuals who are in the country unlawfully and pose risks to public safety. This mission becomes significantly harder in so-called sanctuary cities — like NYC — where there is a lack of cooperation at the local level.

Policies that limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities create real gaps in enforcement. Individuals who should be flagged, detained, or transferred can instead be released back into the community. This is not a failure of law enforcement, but a failure of coordination — and it’s what cost Laken Riley her life.

Standing in that room at the White House, surrounded by families carrying unimaginable loss, reinforced a simple truth: behind every failure in the system is a human cost. These are not abstract debates — they are real lives, real families, and real futures that are changed forever.

Every officer who pins on a badge carries with them a promise, a solemn vow to hold the line between order and chaos, to stand between the innocent and those who would do them harm.  That promise endures on every street corner, in every heartbreaking circumstance, through every failure of the systems meant to support it. 

Americans have a responsibility to ensure that the systems meant to protect our communities are pulling in the same direction. Law enforcement cannot stand alone at the edge of justice while inefficient courts, negligent prosecutors, and radical policymakers neglect their constitutional duty. 

Laken Riley paid for every failure of that system with her life. Her all too short life will never be forgotten — and it is now our responsibility to make sure her death was not in vain.