Nicholas Pekearo, an auxiliary cop, was murdered last year, at the age of 19, on the streets of Greenwich Village. A writer, Nicholas worked at Crawford Doyle Booksellers in Manhattan and lived in Park Slope.

Today, the United States Department of Justice announced on Thursday that the families of Nicholas T. Pekearo and Yevgeniy Marshalik, unarmed auxiliary police officers were entitled to federal death benefits. This is a reversal of past rulings which aroused public protest.

According to the New York Times:

The department said it would award about $300,000 each to the families of the officers, Nicholas T. Pekearo and Yevgeniy Marshalik, under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program, which is intended to compensate the survivors of police officers and firefighters across the nation who are killed in the line of duty.

Officers Pekearo, 28, and Marshalik, 19, were fatally shot on the evening of March 14, 2007, in a confrontation with David R. Garvin, who had fatally shot a bartender in a pizza restaurant. Evan Peterson, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said on Thursday that the decision to award death benefits reflected “the extraordinary efforts” of the officers.