Police Officer Joseph Keegan had a lot to live for on that early Thursday morning as he patrolled the Columbus Circle subway station June 19, 1980. At the ripe young age of 41, he was only 40 days away from early retirement after a 15-year exemplary career with the New York City Transit Police Department. His parents were healthy and happy, he had a large and close family of two brothers and two sisters, and he was engaged to be married. Things were looking up.

Then he had the misfortune to run into Bruce Lorick.

Lorick was one of two men Officer Keegan and his partner encountered loitering near a token booth shortly after 5 a.m. The other man obeyed the officers’ instructions to move on but Lorick refused, so Officer Keegan escorted him up a circular staircase to 59th Street, at the foot of what was then the Gulf and Western Building. When they reached street level, Lorick began to struggle with the cop, tore the officer’s weapon from its holster and fired twice. One slug struck Officer Keegan in the head. Less than three hours later he was dead of head wounds at nearby St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Medical Center. “It appeared the bullet entered one side of the head and exited through the other,” said Dr. Stephan Lynn, director of the emergency department at the hospital.

He was the seventh officer — the third from Transit — killed in the line of duty so far that year. By the end of 1980, the line-of-duty death toll would reach eleven.

“There are a lot of animals walking around out there,” said Transit PBA President Bill McKechnie, blinking back tears outside the hospital. “We can’t allow police officers to be mowed down like this.”

Fortunately, the particular “animal” named Lorick didn’t remain out there very long. The dead officer’s revolver was found in a trash can about 30 feet away from the scene, and the suspect was apprehended hiding in some bushes in Central Park after an hour-long search by scores of cops on foot, in radio cars and in helicopters. Police Officer Richard Spiro of the Central Park Precinct made the collar in a playground at the southern end of the park, north of Seventh Avenue.

Later that afternoon, Lorick was brought to police headquarters in lower Manhattan to be booked on a murder charge. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and blue overalls. He yawned as he was led into the building.

He was eventually convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years-to life.

Now this cold-blooded cop-killer is seeking parole. After advertising for a wife on the Internet, he went before the Parole Board April 2, but not before the Keegan family and the PBA went before that same board on March 18 to give victims’ impact statements and present a petition with more than 5,000 signatures opposing his release.

“He’s a murdering dirt-bag, and it kills me to think he might get out,” said Joseph Keegan’s brother Frank, a retired New York City police officer.

“This killer took and officer’s gun and pumped a bullet into his head,” said PBA President Pat Lynch. “He should never ever see the light of day again as a free man.”

Yawn that away, Lorick.