It’s much easier to focus on what’s wrong with someone or something as opposed to what’s right.

Perhaps that’s a function of the human condition, contriving defense mechanisms to help us cope with complicated situations.

The hostility many feel toward police, it might be argued, is a good example of this. Most reasonable people readily concede that the vast majority of cops are decent sorts, trying to do a tough job in even tougher circumstances.

While the barrel is chock full of good apples, it’s the handful of bad ones that you hear about.

That wasn’t the case last week in New York City, at an emotional funeral for a New York police officer, killed in the line of duty several days earlier. Officer Jason Rivera died in a proverbial hail of bullets fired during the investigation of a domestic disturbance.

Rivera and his 27-year-old partner, Wilbert Mora, were murdered in a residence in Harlem. Someone had called 911 and when the officers arrived to sort things out, a man started shooting.

Rivera’s funeral was wrenching. His widow fought back tears and told a packed St. Patrick’s Cathedral that her 22-year-old husband loved serving his community through policing.

His brother recalled that Rivera wanted to be a cop from an early age and that he wasn’t afraid to die for the uniform.

As Rivera’s body departed the church, New York Times opinion writer Maureen Dowd reported the officer’s mother broke an eerie silence.

“My boy, my little boy, come home to us, my little boy,” she cried.

Remember officers Rivera and Mora. They died so the rest of us could live in peace.

Their sacrifice should not be forgotten.