Chicagoans gather for vigil at Southwest Side church in honor of slain CPD officer Enrique Martinez
CHICAGO (WGN) — At the church and school where he grew up, family, community members and fellow officers of fallen Chicago police officer Enrique Martinez gathered in his memory for evening mass.
"This is about them and reassuring them and their brothers and sisters in the police department that they're not forgotten out here," Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward). "[They are] loved by the city they defend every single day."
Martinez was shot and killed Monday night during a traffic stop near 82nd Street and Ingleside Avenue in the city's Chatham neighborhood. As Martinez approached the car during the traffic stop, the passenger of the vehicle opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing him and the driver of the vehicle.
"It's just heartbreaking having to go through this all over again," said Carlos Yanez Jr, a former Chicago police officer. "Five officers have been killed since Ella, including Ella."
Yanez was the patrol partner of Chicago police officer Ella French, who was shot and killed during a West Englewood traffic stop on Aug. 7, 2021 . Yanez was critically wounded in the shooting, and lost use of one of his eyes as a result of the events that night.
Yanez was joined by a number of other Chicago police officers at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse earlier in the day, where the offender charged in Martinez's murder appeared in front of a Cook County judge for the first time.
"I attend court for every officer I can," Yanez said. "It's a shame. I'm here all the time. It's like, when is it going to end?"
Martinez, like French at the time of her death, had spent nearly three years with the Chicago Police Department before they were killed in the line of duty.
Former classmates told WGN News on Wednesday they remembered Martinez often talked about how he wanted to become a police officer someday, going back as early as elementary school.
'We were always laughing': Classmates, teachers recall childhood memories of fallen CPD officer Enrique Martinez
It was a career path motivated by the actions of his older brother, who became an officer with CPD before Martinez became one himself.
"We are here right down the street from where Andre Vasquez-Lasso was killed," Lopez said. "A mile away is where Ella French was killed. This is a painful scenario for all of us on the Southwest side [and] for all of Chicago."
Those at the vigil Thursday said Martinez was a young man with a charismatic personality, and an infectious laughter.
He was often seen running with his German Shepherd in the city's West Lawn neighborhood, where Martinez still lived with his parents and siblings.
"They became part of a big family that nobody really wants to be part of," said John Catanzara, President of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago. "But here we are. It's nice Luis Huesca's mom is now able to comfort Enrique's mom, who's still going through it herself too."
