

Women place flowers at a memorial to the two New York Police Department officers who were shot and killed nearby on Dec. 20 in Brooklyn. The officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, were killed execution style Dec. 20 as they sat in their marked police car on a Brooklyn street corner. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Bowdoin College in Maine said it was would pay tuition and other expenses for the son of one of the slain New York City police officers to continue attending the school.

Yankee Silver Shield Foundation, which was founded decades ago by late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, said it would pay for the education of the children of the two officers who were killed Saturday in an execution-style slaying. Officer Rafael Ramos leaves a 13-year-old son who goes to a middle school in Brooklyn, as well his son, Justin, a sophomore at Bowdoin, the New York Daily News reported.

But Bowdoin, a small liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine, released a statement on its Web site saying it appreciated the foundation’s offer but would cover all of Justin Ramos’s expenses. It said:

As President Mills wrote Sunday in an e-mail to the Bowdoin community, this is an unspeakable tragedy. We are a very close college community, and our hearts go out to our student Justin Ramos and to his entire family. We are eager to welcome Justin back to campus for the start of our second semester in January, or whenever he is ready to return, and we will do everything we can to support him through this period. In the meantime, we will respect his privacy and that of his family as they deal with this terrible loss. At President Mills’s direction, Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster informed Justin early Sunday morning that the College will provide full financial aid to enable him to complete his Bowdoin education. This is in keeping with Bowdoin’s practice of meeting the full financial need of each of our students for all four years. We are grateful for the Yankee Silver Shield Foundation’s offer to assist, but Bowdoin has it covered.

Here’s the statement Bowdoin released Sunday.