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Officers Conrad Gary and Eduardo Marmolejo: “They wanted to be The Police”
Terms of Endearment
Emotional tributes to Eduardo Marmolejo reinforce how he will always be with us
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
An unopened text message waited for Maria Marmolejo the morning after the horrific incident that took her husband, Edu- ardo. The dispatch could have been one of his love notes, some- thing he sent to Maria just because. Just like he did with sending her flowers, because he believed in showing love and apprecia- tion often.
When Maria opened the text, she found a video that was part of a series Eduardo had been sending every day during the past few weeks to her and their family, friends and fellow officers from the 5th District. Several weeks earlier, Maria, Eduardo and daughters Becca, Madelyn and Sophie had rescued a pit bull mix puppy. They named him Champ. Every day, Ed had been sending videos of Champ. Pooping.
Even hours after being lost in one of the worst tragedies to befall the Chicago Police Department, Eduardo – her beloved “Lalo” – could still make Maria smile and laugh. Light her up. Just as he did to every room he ever entered, every person he ever met, every officer who was immediately inspired to call him “brother.”
Oh, they called him by other names. Chicago Police Officer Andres Lizarzaburo was Marmolejo’s wingman going through the academy, and from the day he met Eduardo, he called him “Rasa,” which he translated as “homie.” Andronicki Ganczewski was the first officer to meet Eduardo when he walked into the roll call room in 005 on his first night there.
called. “He said, ‘Marmolejo.’ I said, ‘OK, Marmalade it is.’ And it kind of stuck. It was our thing.”
“Lalo” – as Maria came to know him after he put on that soc- cer uniform to impress her when they met, even though he didn’t play the game – generated terms of endearment from everybody he met. There was that time when he was driving eight friends in his four-seat car to a party in Oak Lawn and was pulled over by the police. When he arrived at the party, he ad- mitted how he avoided getting a ticket by telling them a story about how he wanted to become a police officer. Apparently, the cops smiled and let him go.
“His smile was sparkling, even from a distance,” revealed Of- ficer Gustavo Velazquez, who worked third watch in 005 with
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“I said, ‘Welcome to 005. What’s your name?’” Ganczewski re-
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