Diane Duguid is a former Bradfordian who now lives in New York. She is married to a retired policeman and both their sons are in the police force.

I got up early yesterday to watch the funeral of PC Sharon Beshenivsky's on a live internet streaming from one of the British news services.

It was so sad to see that all this happened not so long ago in my home town. It should not have happened to any police officer, let alone a woman.

While visiting Bradford last month, my husband went to City Hall to show his respect as a fellow police officer and he signed the book of condolence that was there. Her family has had to suffer the loss of a wife, mother, friend. But now she is at peace.

Yesterday here in New York, a police officer was laid to rest, but not at the hand of a murderer, but a band of murderers. He was a victim of September 11, 2001.

He died from inhaling asbestos that rained from the sky that day, as he dug through the ruins of what was the World Trade Centre. His name was James Zadroga, and he was a police detective.

He was the first emergency worker to die from exposure from that day. There are many police and firemen with lung problems from the air that they breathed that day.

Here were people trying to help others survive, by trying to dig them out of the ruins, not knowing they were at risk of their own lives.

And now one of those courageous people has died, so young.

In November a police officer was shot and killed here in New York, and also left a young wife two girls, aged five and six months. All he did was chase a person who had gone through three traffic lights, and when they pulled alongside, the perpetrator fired a barrage of bullets, which went through the car, going under the police officer's bulletproof vest, into his heart.

He actually drove to hospital, with his partner, after a gun battle in an underground garage in Brooklyn, and after emergency surgery to repair the hole in his heart, he died. Here was a police officer who was armed, and he didn't even know he had been seriously injured.

So arming the police is not the answer to everyone's pleas in England. This person, who has now been arrested, actually tried to flee the scene, because he had shot and injured a police officer the week before, and he was picked out of a lineup from the officer he shot. He was one of the lucky ones, if you can call lucky not being killed.

Every state here has its own gun ownership laws.

We have a saying that it is isn't the gun that kills people, it is the person with the gun who kills people.

It is the first time in several years that a uniformed officer has been killed in New York City.

We have had several undercover detectives killed, and both my sons are undercover.

We hope every year that the world will be a better place, but as long as there are people out there who want it to be otherwise, we are all at risk.

People are out there, working hard, making a home for their families, and yet there is someone out there who is trying to take away that happiness.

Some say that our rewards are not met on earth, and I hope that it is the truth. We will never know, will we?