New York City Police Officer Robert Grossman was remembered at his funeral in Smithtown Monday as a husband, a father, a son, a brother and a friend to countless people he met over the years.

His death left a void in their world as they and hundreds of mourners bid farewell to the Rocky Point resident who died Friday at a local hospice. Grossman, 41, developed a brain tumor his physician and family said he got when he worked at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, and in the weeks following the terrorist attacks.

Grossman – who had worked at the 28th Precinct in Harlem since 1994, when he graduated from the police academy – also left behind a son, Noah, 6.

Grossman’s father, Stephen Grossman, urged the nation’s leaders to do more to provide treatment for scores of first responders like his son, whose health troubles, he said, stemmed from their time working at Ground Zero.

“We have $3 billion for clunkers and no money to help these first responders,” Stephen Grossman said Monday, minutes before he headed to Washington Memorial Park in Mount Sinai to bury his son.

Many first responders and their relatives have said they were sickened after working at or near Ground Zero but New York City officials have stopped short of saying the air quality in lower Manhattan after 9/11 was unsafe.

(Source: Newsday)