300 Mourn Anti-Drug Crusader

NEW YORK — An estimated 300 mourners, including Mayor Edward I. Koch, attended a funeral Mass Saturday for slain anti-drug crusader Maria Hernandez, amid heavy security to prevent further violence against her family.

Hernandez, 34, a mother of three who with her husband fought to force drug dealers out of her Brooklyn neighborhood, was shot to death Tuesday, possibly in retaliation for her anti-drug efforts.

During a 70-minute Mass conducted in Spanish and English at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, the Rev. Charles Plock praised the woman’s efforts to transform her neighborhood into a place where there would be “no mourning, no tears, no fear. She labored and she struggled and she fought. She organized people to make her community reflect this new heaven and this new Earth. Maria gave her life because she was not afraid to speak the truth.”