On list Two Chicago police officers among 47 people shot and one cop dead in single night violence

By Rek Hanibal Published on August 09, 2021

At least 47 people were shot in less than 24 hours in Chicago. Seven of them fatally, including a Chicago police officer killed by gunfire as she and her partner were making a traffic stop in the West Englewood neighbourhood. The slain officer’s partner was also wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday from his injuries.

According to Chicago police, The violence beginning Saturday night also included two mass shootings in separate Gresham nightclubs and an apparent murder-suicide in a Cragin apartment. The other officer, with the department since August 2014, is fighting for his life in critical condition at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Andrew French said his younger sister always thought of others before herself.“My sister’s always been a person of integrity. She’s always done the right thing, even when nobody’s looking. She’s always believed in people and believed in doing the right thing. ... She’s always believed in taking care of people that can’t take care of themselves,” he said.

An Iraq War veteran Andrew French said that “even before she joined the force,” his sister was a proponent of therapy or social services over more jail time. He said she wanted to see people get the help they needed, more “than throwing people in jail.”

“She was a humanitarian. She believed in human rights. She was one of the officers on the force that thought they needed reform,” he said. “Because she’s seen the front line, just like I have. She’s always been a very caring person ... When I was in Iraq, I and her talk. And she has some attributes that you don’t find in this world anymore.”

Many of those personality traits, he said, boil down to being a solid, selfless human being, more concerned with substance than what’s convenient or fashionable: “She was the epitome of a good Samaritan.”

“And she was the best sister. It didn’t matter what I was going through or how hard things were hitting me; she was always there,” he said. French said his sister loved to travel. And most often, her travel partner was their mother. He said mother and daughter were one another’s best friends. The pair took trips together three or four times a year, he said.

“She was there for my mom. She was reliable. ... She’s my sister, she’s my little sister. And as much as I was there for her when we were growing up, she was there for me. And I was proud of her; I’m still proud of her. Like this is God took the wrong kid,” he said. “I’ve done some really (expletive) things because being in the Army, you don’t do beautiful things at all ... but my sister was a wonderful person, in all ways.”

The shooting happened just after 9 p.m. Saturday near West 63rd Street, and South Bell Avenue when the officers conducted a traffic stop on three people in a vehicle, First Deputy police Superintendent Eric Carter said at a Sunday morning news conference.

Someone opened fire on the officers during the stop, and Carter said at least one officer returned fire. Two officers, including French, and one of the suspects was shot.

The officers were taken to the U. of C. Medical Center while the wounded suspect was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. He and one other male suspect were in custody; a female suspect who was at large after the shooting was arrested later Sunday, police officials said.

Both French and the critically wounded officer were members of the community safety team, a citywide unit formed last summer under police Superintendent David Brown to respond to crime hot spots.

On Saturday, Brown was in his hometown of Dallas, where his mother died late last week. He returned to Chicago on Sunday morning, speaking at the news conference about the shooting a short time later. He provided limited information about French, though officials acknowledged she was survived by a mother, brother and other family members. Brown also praised the courage of his 12,000-strong department continuing to work after one of their colleagues was killed.

In 2020, the Police Department deemed the deaths of four Chicago cops who succumbed to COVID-19 as the line-of-duty deaths. Before Saturday night, though, the last line-of-duty deaths of Chicago cops who were killed while pursuing a suspect were in December 2018, when Officers Eduardo Marmolejo and Conrad Gary were fatally struck by a train as they looked for a man wanted for illegally possessing a gun. That suspect, Edward Brown, was sentenced this past April to a year in prison for a felony weapon violation in the case.

Also, before Saturday, the last female Chicago police officer to be shot to death in the line of duty was Irma Ruiz, who died in September 1988, when she was shot inside an elementary school on the Near West Side.

Andrew French said his sister always embodied the definition of selflessness and wasn’t one to get bogged down or “caught up in the dumb stuff of life.” She had an actual head on her shoulders. She was a bright, beautiful person,” he said. Chicago Tribune’s Annie Sweeney and Talia Soglin contributed.

Rek Hanibal

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