Second Visitation Held for Fallen CPD Officer Eduardo Marmolejo

OAK LAWN, IL -- Hours after they had buried the first of fallen two Chicago police officers, police were back at Blake-Lamb Funeral Home in Oak Lawn, where they gathered Friday afternoon for the wake of 36-year-old Officer Eduardo Marmolejo.

Marmolejo and fellow officer Conrad Gary, 31, were fatally hit by a commuter train on the Far South Side earlier this week as they investigated a person shooting a gun. The young officer had joined the Chicago police force in March 2017. Gary’s funeral was held Friday morning.

A friend told the Chicago Tribune that Marmolejo had a tough upbringing in the South Side’s Back 0f the Yard neighborhood. Marmolejo pulled himself up by his bootstraps, becoming an emergency room technician at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. He was appointed to the Chicago Police Department in April 2016. A resident of West Beverly, Marmolejo was a married for six years to his high school sweetheart Maria. He was the father of three daughters, Rebeca, Madalyn and Sofia.

Visitors filed solemnly into the chapel toward the flag-draped casket, past a gallery of photographs of Marmolejo surrounded by family in happier days: the doting father with his beaming daughter attending a daddy-daughter dance, dates with his wife, and celebrations with family and friends.

Police officers passed out buttons with Marmolejo’s photo and prayer cards to visitors.

The funeral Mass for Ofcr. Marmolejo is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 22, at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel, 7740 S. Western Ave. (77th Street and Western Avenue), Chicago.