A statue honoring fallen Chicago Police Officer Ella French was unveiled Sunday on what would have been her 34th birthday.<\/p>\n
“I could not have imagined a better birthday gift for her,” said Elizabeth French, Ella French’s mother.<\/p>\n
Ella French was fatally shot, and her partner, Carlos Yanez, Jr., was critically injured during a traffic stop in 2021.<\/p>\n
“I look at her, and I want to touch her,” Ella French’s mother said. “The only thing better would be to have her in person. She is beyond beautiful.”<\/p>\n
Artist Erik Blome, who created the life-size bronze statue that now sits at Wentworth Park, said he wanted to create the connection Ella French had with people.<\/p>\n
The statue depicts French, who loved animals, alongside a dog. The adjacent dog park was also dedicated as the “Ella French Dog Friendly Area” in her memory.<\/p>\n
“I have heard the stories how she would tell her partner – stop the car – because she would see a stray animal and want to get it to safety,” her mother stated. <\/p>\n
Ella French’s legacy has also been celebrated in other ways, including the non-profit Light the Line, which was founded by her family to support on-duty police officers.<\/p>\n
“Ella is not the only officer killed in the line of duty, and I am not the only parent that has lost a child. This is for them too,” her mother said. “I told somebody once this is a wonderfully sad thing\u2026like any parent, you would rather have your child.”<\/p>\n
Elizabeth French said losing a child is “a devastation that leaves a hole in your heart and life that does not away, but things like this are very healing – very healing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A statue honoring fallen Chicago Police Officer Ella French was unveiled Sunday on what would have been her…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":190291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5462,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-190290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-news","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115126068047863826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}