In His Grandfather’s Footsteps...

While patrolling the same East Village streets that his namesake did more than 50 years ago, NYPD Police Officer Gregory Foster can’t help thinking of the grandfather he never met.

“There are lots of challenges out there and, as I face them, I always keep his strength in mind,” says the young cop. “I use it for motivation. I ask myself, what would he do?”

In January 1972, Patrolman Gregory Foster was assassinated along with his partner Rocco Laurie in an ambush by members of the Black Liberation Army – one the most heinous cop-killings of the second half of the 20th century. Foster and Laurie had served together in the Marines and teamed up again in the Ninth Precinct, where now every rookie who walks into the stationhouse is told of the Foster-Laurie history, and the duo are accorded the reverence they deserve.

The younger Gregory Foster would never have been able not to remember them. His grandmother wouldn’t let him.

Jacqueline Foster was determined to keep the memory of her martyred husband alive. “She would talk about him all the time,” he says. “About how he was a man’s man, about how strong he was, how he took care of the family, how he had served both his country and his city. And how she wanted me to be just like him. ‘You wanna be that guy,’ she would tell me.”

So, eventually, Gregory Foster III set out to be that guy. He started off, like his grandfather, by joining the military. He served seven years in the Army National Guard, working in anti-terrorism, protecting hot zones like airports and transit systems. In the period following his active service in the military, he wasn’t so sure about undertaking a police career. But finally, the appeal of his heritage became too great.

On Dec. 28, 2019, Gregory Foster III graduated from the NYPD Police Academy and, wearing his grandfather’s shield, soon started serving in the Ninth Precinct and literally walking in his grandfather’s footsteps as he patrols the East Village.

Grandma Foster would have approved.