Steven D. McDonald[1] (March 1, 1957 – January 10, 2017) was a New York City Police Department patrolman who was shot and paralyzed on July 12, 1986.

[2] A former U.S. Navy hospital corpsman and third generation NYPD police officer,[3] McDonald was shot in the line of duty by 15-year-old Shavod Jones, one of three boys he was questioning about bicycle thefts in Central Park.

[8] At the time of the shooting, they had been married for less than a year and Patti was pregnant with their son Conor, who followed his father's footsteps by joining the NYPD in 2010.

[13] The program was started after McDonald traveled to Northern Ireland multiple times from 1997 to 1999 with his friends Mychal Judge and Johann Christoph Arnold to promote forgiveness in the wake of the conflicts there.

[14] Following his death, McDonald's wife and son have continued working with Breaking the Cycle by telling his story of forgiveness to students.