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“We all know that when you work in a district like 6, two to three years is like 20 years of experience anywhere else,” the police superintendent said.

Rather than focusing on how the young officer died, Snelling asked the packed church to focus on what could have happened had Officer Martinez not made that fateful traffic stop.

“In the moments when he recognized there was danger he went to it and gave his life,” Snelling said. “But when you look at the circumstances of what occurred, the question is, how many lives did he save that night by making that stop at that particular moment? How many innocent people did he protect that could have become victims had Officer Martinez not stopped the vehicle that night?”

“The willingness to give your life for the safety of others is the most noble thing you can do …” the police superintendent told the assembled police officers sitting in pews. “Do great things for our fine officer.”

Officer Martinez grew up in the West Lawn area where he attended St. Nicholas of Tolentine Catholic Grammar School. He met the love of his life, Lesly Hernandez, when he was 16 years old at Hubbard High School. The high school sweethearts were engaged to be married at the time of his death.

Colleagues recalled Ofcr. Martinez’s sunny personality and charisma that elevated the 6th District, who kept his colleagues laughing and loose in the midst of their often mind numbing and traumatic work.

Officer Martinez’s grieving brother, Ardian Martinez, also a Chicago police officer, recalled how he was 5 years old when he convinced his parents, Rosa Mayen, and Adrian Martinez, Sr., to name his baby brother after his favorite pop singer, Enrique Iglesias.

“As boys, my mother pushed us to become doctors and moms, like any Latino mom,” Adrian Martinez said. “But my brother and I had other dreams, we wanted to become Chicago police officers.”

Adrian said his mother tried to shield her boys from the profession.

“But as hard as she tried we realized it wasn’t just a job it was our calling,” Adrian Martinez said. “To serve the disadvantaged and protest the forgotten.”

In his early 20s, Enrique entered the police academy, following in the footsteps of his older brother.

“He was charismatic and had a gentle smile …,” his brother continued. “If he could rescue every dog on his beat he would.”

On his final tour, Adrian said his brother “looked evil and terror in the face and took his final breath.”

“You may not know it but that night my brother saved countless lives as he was pierced by multiple bullets,” Adrian Martinez said. “Every bullet that struck my brother could have taken someone’s mother, father, sister, brother or friend.”

“Enrique will always be my little brother but I will always look up to him,” he added. “I am proud to be his big brother. His blood runs through my veins and now he lives through me and I live for him.

On Sunday afternoon, Chicago police officers and community members stood in a block-long line for more than an hour outside of Blake-Lamb Funeral Home to pay their respects to the fallen officer.

Martinez is the second Chicago police officer to be gunned down this year. He worked in CPD’s 6th District and would have celebrated his third anniversary with the department in December.

Martinez was gunned down by 23-year-old Darion McMillian, who police say used a switch to turn his semi-automatic handgun into a machine gun. McMillian was on electronic monitoring for two pending cases out of Will County.

The driver inside the vehicle was also fatally shot from gunfire that came from inside the vehicle, police said. A gun was reportedly found in the deceased driver’s waistband.

At the time of the shooting, McMillian was on pretrial release for two pending Will County cases. Attempts to revoke McMillion’s pretrial release last month after he picked up a second case three weeks before the officer’s fatal shooting were continued until Nov. 21.

In April, Officer Luis Huesca was still in uniform when he was fatally shot by a carjacker in his driveway after finishing his shift.

The Martinez family through intermediaries requested that Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritizker not to come to the young officer’s funeral mass Monday at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel.

Pritzker immediately honored the family’s wishes. Johnson, however, planned to attend the officer’s funeral whether invited or not. On Saturday, Johnson announced he would respect the Martinez family’s wishes by staying away.

Officer Huesca’s family made a similar request in April that the governor and mayor stay away from his wake and funeral.

In a videotaped statement posted to YouTube earlier in the week, Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara told Johnson to be a “class act” and not a “piece of garbage.”

Outside of Blake-Lamb during the visitation, retired CPD Chief of Detectives Eugene Roy compared the city’s gun violence to cancer.

“It’s like Chicago is suffering from a form of cancer,” Roy told reporters gathered across the street from the funeral home. “It started off mildly enough but now it’s a fully blossomed disease and it’s taking our citizens, school kids and even police officers.”

Martinez is the fourth Chicago police officer to be slain while on duty during the past three years. Last year, in May 2023, Officer Areanah Preston was shot to death by alleged carjackers when she came home after finishing her shift. A few months earlier in March 2023, Officer Andres Vasquez Lasso was fatally shot answering a domestic call.

CPD maintains that hundreds more police officers have been shot at.

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