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CHICAGO LODGE 7
Official Magazine
President’s Report
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE CHICAGO LODGE #7
EXECUTIVE BOARD
JOHN CATANZARA JR.
President
Michael Mette
First Vice President
Daniel D. Gorman
Second Vice President
Fernando Flores
Third Vice President
Rob Noceda
Recording Secretary
Jim Jakstavich
Financial Secretary
Dennis McGuire
Treasurer
Dean Angelo Sr.
Immediate Past President
Sergeants-at-Arms
Nenad Markovich Frank Quinn III Daniel Sheehan
Trustees
Harold Brown John Capparelli Pablo Claudio Frank J. DiMaria David DiSanti Mark P. Donahue Patrick Duckhorn Tim Fitzpatrick Dan Goetz Ken Hauser Tom Lonergan Brock Merck Steve Olsen Monica Ortiz Dan Quaid Ron Shogren Daniel G. Trevino
Field Representative
Andrew Cantore
For Ella, Carlos and Josh
There’s a lot of healing and long days ahead for a lot of us, and especially for the family of Ella French. And there’s a long road ahead for Carlos Yanez and Josh Blas. They are all going to need our love and support, our prayers and thoughts during the days weeks months and years ahead.
There was definitely something different about this one, and I said that from the moment it happened. It just felt more devastating for some reason. I don’t know if it’s because we lost a female officer or because she was so young, but there was definitely something different about it.
Beyond all the pain, though, there is some light. Carlos is giving a left-handed thumbs up. He is in rehab now. He’s making progress by leaps and bounds, which is amazing. He’s actually able to wiggle his little toe on his left foot, which was the first motor skill movement on the left side of the body. I mean, he is just battling his ass off.
And we were so blessed to have Ella’s mom, Elizabeth, join us at our annual golf outing. Being able to give her this little boost made us all feel better, and I promise that this is something we will be doing for Ella’s family, as well as Carlos and Josh, forever. I have been taking Ella’s uniform with me everywhere, from the National FOP Conference in Indianapolis, to her visitation, to the golf outing, to having it hanging in my office. We are going to keep her spirit alive because it is so powerful, and we continue to honor Carlos and Josh because we can do that better than anybody.
We have some irons in the fire when it comes to making sure these families want for nothing going forward. I’ve had donation offers from across the country, so we’re going to put something together. It’s probably going to take a little more time than I’d like because it’s going to be pretty damn big.
I think there’s a couple of different factors of why this one hit harder for me personally. Hopefully, this will be the first and last line-of-duty death with me as a head of this organization. God willing, we will never have to worry about anything like this ever again.
There have been been a couple of close calls the past year that could have gone either way. We’ve escaped tragedy by millimeters at least twice that I can think of off the top of my head. And then you put the anti-police climate on top of all of this, how much everybody wants to blame the police for everything and how we repeatedly say, “What the hell are these kids in the city doing?” Why is any- body doing any work?
And yet here is an officer who was literally still doing the right thing and at breakneck speed by all accounts. It’s a cliché to say she was the future of this Department. Her mindset and her approach to being the police and what she wanted to do, whether it was from a caring perspective of trying to give people the benefit of the doubt or locking criminals up, she basically had all the bases covered.
Ella was about to turn 30, and I think that made it even more personal for me because my son Adam just turned 30. If you will indulge me a quick salute to my son: Happy birthday. Thank you for teaching me the definition of the word “responsibility.”
So there were so many different factors that really just kind of hit home all at the same time for me. I take things very personally when it comes to this job and the commitment we said we were going to give to the membership first.
These really have been the words we are living by. And it isn’t just me. This was all hands on deck for everything. There was so much going on at the same time that without the whole team effort, none of what we have been doing to honor Ella, Carlos and Josh would have been possible.
I also want to praise our members, the women and men of this Department who made sure to lend their personal support. Nobody batted an eye about waiting three hours at the visitation. We would have waited all night to pay our respects.
And your attendance at the funeral was amazing. I don’t know if they keep track of records, so to speak, but that certainly had to be up there as far as attendance.
I wish the Department would have not been such a disaster in all of this. They could have at least posted giant screens outside the church for everybody to witness what was being done inside and not just have the audio feed. I think there might’ve been one screen outside, but there should have been several stations for officers to watch the service.
I think their handling of this funeral inflamed us all. And we are all feeling that we are under attack. But this is our sister, and there’s no better time to come together as a profession than now.
JOHN CATANZARA JR.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT CONTINUES ON PAGE 6
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ SEPTEMBER 2021 5