Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly approached the casket of Dillon Stewart as the slain police officer’s friends and family talked among themselves and other law enforcers from as far away as Honolulu and Israel huddled in clusters.

Standing side by side, the two bowed their heads for several moments. Large flower arrangements in the shape of reefs, crosses, and hearts hung behind the casket. Two hanging screens displayed rotating snapshots from the officer’s life – photographs of him with his two children, at his wedding, at his graduation from the police academy, and at his wife’s graduation from nursing school.

Thousands of people filed through New Life Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church on Avenue D in Flatbush, Brooklyn, yesterday to pay their respects to Stewart, 35, who was shot and killed last Monday while attempting to pull over a man for running a red light.

The mourners were lined up around the block 15 minutes before the wake began. Since Stewart’s death, his wife, Leslyn, and children Alexis, 6, and Samantha, 5 months, have become “like family,” a police officer in the 70th Precinct where Stewart worked, Sharon Brown, said.

In addition to the approximately 200 family members hailing from places including Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica, many who did not know Stewart were on hand to pay their respects. Denise Briggs, a member of the church who lives two blocks away felt compelled to stop by although she had never met Stewart. While she was angry about his death, she said, she also felt sorrow.

“It’s just a sad thing for the community,” Ms. Briggs said. She said the officer’s death felt close to home because she has a 23-year-old daughter in the Army in Iraq.

Another attendee, Lynette Bowen, who also had never met the officer, said she just had to be there. “It’s very sad,” Ms. Bowen said.

Over a seven-hour period yesterday, the mood was anything but somber at the church where Stewart’s two children were christened. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer paid a visit, as did Detective Steven McDonald, who was shot and paralyzed while on patrol in Central Park in 1986. Governor Pataki was also expected to make an appearance, as was Jamaica’s consul general, Dr. Basil Bryan. Stewart was born in Jamaica.

Stewart was a decorated police officer who served for five years. He was posthumously promoted to detective at a ceremony last week. Allan Cameron, 27, has been charged with his murder.

The funeral is scheduled for today at New Life Tabernacle. To accommodate the thousands expected to attend, loudspeakers will be set up outside the 1,800-seat church.