Brooklyn Honors Security Guard Who Saved Lives in NYC Shooting

The Final Watch: Mourning a Brooklyn Hero

Before dawn had broken fully over Canarsie, more than three hundred mourners assembled at the Guarino Funeral Home. The air was heavy with grief and gratitude as the community came together to lay to rest a man whose last act was shielded in utter selflessness. Aland Etienne was not a public official, nor a widely known celebrity. He was, though, a 46-year-old Haitian immigrant, a father, a fiancé, and a security guard—a role society often overlooks, right up until tragedy unmasks the hero within.

Etienne’s name now sits agonizingly among those lost to America’s relentless tide of mass shootings. His story, unlike the gunman who stole so many futures at Midtown’s 345 Park Avenue, is not one fueled by hate but defined by uncommon courage in the face of mortal peril. When Shane Tamura opened fire in the lobby on July 28, Etienne didn’t run. Instead, with fatal wounds, he crawled toward the elevator control panel, hitting the recall button to keep the shooter from reaching the upper floors.

This quick-thinking act likely spared countless lives. According to eyewitness accounts and union officials who reviewed building security logs, Tamura had been moving with clear intent. The elevator recall was the final barrier; in its silent click, dozens of office workers were granted a future.

The Immigrant Who Became a Lifesaver

As the mayor and political figures like Zohran Mamdani joined neighborhood leaders, Etienne’s family recounted his journey from Haiti to New York in 2017. Every narrative detail underscored what it means—and costs—to pursue security for one’s family in a city both vibrant and unforgiving.

His story is all too familiar: an immigrant father building a new life, holding union membership with 32BJ SEIU, clocking hard hours so loved ones could reach for something better. “Security officers go to work each day, uncertain if they’ll make it home,” union president Manny Pastreich explained—highlighting that their work is carried out with little recognition, yet enormous risk. “Aland took his job duties extremely seriously and will be remembered as a hero.”^[1]

Beyond his uniform, Etienne carried passions and dreams common to so many in Brooklyn’s Haitian community. He inspired his younger brother, who is pursuing a career in film, and regularly offered advice on storytelling. His longtime partner, Rachelle Paoli, met him in a high school classroom in Haiti; their lives intertwined for decades, and together they planned to buy a house and raise their youngest child, now just five.

“He made the ultimate sacrifice, choosing bravery and selflessness over fear.” – Smith Etienne, Aland’s brother

The faces at Etienne’s funeral reflected New York’s mosaic of hope and heartbreak: fellow guards who described how they now scan every passing stranger with new wariness; union stewards with tears in their eyes; a mayor whose presence was a reminder that even high offices are not untouched by the failures of America’s gun laws.

Valor, Betrayed by Policy Inaction

It’s a bitter irony that in the aftermath of such violence, the conservative playbook remains unchanged: thoughts, prayers, and fleeting outrage. Immediate calls to arm more officers or harden buildings substitute for the substantive reforms a majority of Americans now demand. Legislation inches forward not at the pace of tragedy, but at the molasses-slow crawl of special-interest obstruction.

Frontline workers like Etienne—across schools, hospitals, and transit systems—are daily forced into impossible heroics because our nation refuses to address the root cause: a gun culture turned lethal by negligent policies. According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, the U.S. gun homicide rate is over 25 times higher than most peer nations.^[2] There’s nothing inevitable about this toll. Every expert, from Harvard School of Public Health’s David Hemenway to the American Public Health Association, points to clear links between lax gun regulation and elevated casualties.

Individual valor should inspire us; it cannot be where we rest. Etienne’s union, 32BJ SEIU, has now called for better protections for security personnel—including robust mental health crisis support and sensible firearm restrictions—to prevent more families from suffering the fate of the Etiennes. Their advocacy exposes the limits of the conservative argument that security is simply a matter of more guards or more guns. Real safety, as history has shown, springs from policies shaped not by fear, but by collective responsibility.

When the funeral procession slipped from the Guarino Funeral Home back into Brooklyn’s busy streets, it wasn’t just a family or a community that grieved; it was the latest reminder of how, in America, justice for the dead often feels more ceremonial than systemic.

If you stood in the hush of that chapel, you might ask yourself: How many times must we mourn the courageous before we finally honor them with action?