George Villanueva is accused of pushing Officer Schaberger over a railing after police responded to the scene of a domestic dispute. The officer fell nine feet to the basement before landing on his head and breaking his neck.
Schaberger was a 10-year NYPD veteran who was born in Vietnam. He came to the U.S. when he was 5 years old with his father - an Army vet who worked as a civilian guard at the U.S. Embassy when Saigon fell in 1975 - and Vietnamese mother.Schaberger, who worked the night shift in Brooklyn's 84th Precinct, had been a NYPD officer for ten years. He had plans to marry his fiancee and retire in seven years. More here: Grieving fiancee of slain Brooklyn cop Alain Schaberger: 'It's like I'm waking up in a nightmare.'
Raised in East Islip, L.I., Schaberger grew up on tidy block of single-family homes and played basketball at the local public school.
"I would also like to thank my family for encouraging me and giving me confidence during my high school years," he wrote in the 1987 East Islip High School yearbook.
Schaberger attended college briefly, then bravely followed his father's footsteps into public service.
He served in the Navy from 1991 to 1995 and joined the Police Academy in 2001, where he was in the class forced onto the streets early because of 9/11, patrolling Ground Zero checkpoints and escorting grieving family members.