Story highlights Errol Louis: Bronx police officer shot dead by mentally ill man shows pressing need to grapple with cop safety and social ills

He says society must build systems that let us find and defuse the ticking time bombs in our midst before tragedy

Errol Louis is the host of "Inside City Hall," a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN) Her name, Miosotis, comes from the flower commonly known as forget-me-nots. And New Yorkers will never forget the vicious, unprovoked murder of Officer Miosotis Familia Wednesday morning in the Bronx.

Now comes the hard part: keeping popular rage and political score-settling at bay while we muster the popular and political will to take whatever steps might prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

Familia was shot in the head while sitting in a mobile command center vehicle, a sentry on the midnight shift trying to keep a neighborhood safe.

A former Red Cross worker, she leaves behind three children —12-year-old twins and daughter who is in college. (For those who want to help, a fund to support them has been established by a charity run by the New York Daily News; every penny will go to the kids.)

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Her killer was Alexander Bonds, a longtime criminal and a madman off his meds who died in a hail of police bullets moments after killing Familia. In the wake of the killings, people left vicious comments on Bonds' Facebook page with pointless taunts like, "Rot in hell," for the dead man, some placing blame on activists in the Black Lives Matter movement.