{"id":405620,"date":"2025-11-26T09:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T09:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/405620\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T09:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T09:11:11","slug":"pair-receive-life-sentences-in-2023-killing-of-philadelphia-police-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/405620\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair receive life sentences in 2023 killing of Philadelphia police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jack Tomczuk<\/p>\n

Two men are set to spend the rest of their lives behind bars after they were convicted of murder earlier this week for the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez<\/a> two years ago.<\/p>\n

Mendez, a 50-year-old father of two, was fatally shot Oct. 12, 2023, while interrupting a group of men who were attempting to steal cars inside a parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport. His partner, Officer Raul Ortiz, was injured.<\/p>\n

Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 20, and Hendrick Pe\u00f1a-Fernandez, 23, both of Camden County, were each sentenced to life in prison without parole following a jury trial that concluded Monday. Martinez-Fernandez, who authorities say fired the deadly shots, received an additional term of 25 to 50 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Nothing will return my husband back to us, but today justice was served,” Alexandra Carerro, Mendez’s wife, said in a statement Monday. “My husband was an amazing human being, and did not deserve to lose his life the way he did.”<\/p>\n

Two other men \u2013 Jes\u00fas Hern\u00e1n Madera Dur\u00e1n and Alexander Batista-Polanco \u2013 were with Martinez-Fernandez and Pe\u00f1a-Fernandez.<\/p>\n

Batista-Polanco reportedly pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, a lesser charge, shortly before the trial and testified for the prosecution. Dur\u00e1n, 18, was struck by Martinez-Fernandez\u2019s gunfire and died of his injuries.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement officials said the group dropped Dur\u00e1n at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia before driving to New Jersey and torching the getaway car at an abandoned warehouse.<\/p>\n

Mendez served as an officer in the Philadelphia Police Department<\/a> for 22 years.<\/p>\n

“This jury saw that [officers’] lives matter. We know the pain never goes away,\u201d Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue to honor Officer Mendez and his legacy by doing the work.”<\/p>\n

\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tPhiladelphia Police Officer,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t Richard Mendez,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t Philadelphia Police Department\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jack Tomczuk Two men are set to spend the rest of their lives behind bars after they…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":405621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,14844,191432,191433,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-405620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-police-department","13":"tag-philadelphia-police-officer","14":"tag-richard-mendez","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115615228788861956","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405620","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=405620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}