Hundreds of police vehicles on Tuesday escorted the bodies of two Chicago cops — both husbands and fathers — who were killed when a speeding train struck them as they chased an armed suspect late Monday.
Eduardo Marmolejo, 36, and Conrad Gary, 31, were hit by the commuter train after responding to a call of shots fired in the Rosemoore neighborhood around 6 p.m. Monday, the local ABC affiliate reported.
Footage from one of their body cameras shows the officers getting out of their patrol car and heading to the tracks at 103rd and Cottage Grove Avenue to investigate where the suspect could have gone.
In the distance, they saw an approaching train whose noise may have masked the sound of another high-speed train full of commuters only feet behind the partners, police said.
The video has not been released.
Gary, a married father of a 6-month-old daughter, had only been on the force for 18 months, the news outlet reported.
His father, Mike, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Gary “was the greatest kid ever.”
“He was a wonderful man,” Mike Gary said. “He was a great father. Adored his child. He was a great husband. And he was a good police officer. He loved that job.”
Meanwhile, residents in Marmolejo’s West Beverly neighborhood remembered how he moved in around the time he became a cop two and a half years ago.
He lived there with his wife and their three daughters.
“He was a runner,” said one neighbor who declined to be named. “I’d see him running and then be somewhere else in the neighborhood two hours later and see him still running. He always had a smile on his face.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson expressed his “shock” at the officers’ deaths.
“It highlights again just how dangerous this job can be. I often say the most dangerous thing a police officer can do is take a weapon off of an armed individual, and that’s what they were doing, with no regard for their own safety,” he told ABC 7 Chicago.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said “this holiday will never be the same for those two families.
“While our hearts are with them, we lost people who answered the call to try and make Chicago a better place.”
