Chicago Police honor fallen comrades, slain New York Police officers

The Chicago law enforcement community honored its fallen brothers and sisters Thursday with a prayer service timed to mark the slayings of two New York police officers in December.

Officers and their families gathered at the Gold Star Families Memorial and Park near the shore of Lake Michigan at 2:47 p.m. — the exact time New York officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were shot to death without warning Dec. 20 in Brooklyn.

Chicago Police Chaplain Daniel Brandt said officers in Chicago are the “face of God” for many of the city’s residents.

“It’s ironic that some of you do work in neighborhoods where, on every block, you see at least one storefront church,” Brandt said. “And yet, you are the only face of God that some of the good residents of those neighborhoods see in the course of a day or a week.”

Brandt said Ramos and Liu were “assassinated in their patrol car,” and he called their deaths a “hate crime.”

“Why? For being the police,” Brandt said. “For being the face of God in a society that is not always friendly to that face.”