CHICAGO (CBS/WBBM) — The Chicago Police department’s 23rd District (Town Hall) station will be draped in purple bunting this morning, as officers mourn the death of Sgt. Alan Haymaker, to died in a crash in the line of duty yesterday.
The crash on Lake Shore Drive Monday morning happened as Haymaker was responding to a burglary call. Weather may have been a factor.
Sgt. Haymaker, 56, had a wife and three daughters. He was an active member of his church. His pastor tells the Chicago Tribune Haymaker played the guitar and loved classic rock.
An autopsy will be performed today.
Sgt. Haymaker was pronounced dead at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. He was a third generation officer with the Chicago Police Department and a 21-year veteran of the force.
In the southbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive, you could see tire tracks in the snow Monday. That’s where Sgt. Haymaker’s squad car left the road around 5:30 Monday morning.
Investigators say the crashed pinned Haymaker in his car, adding they had to cut him out of his seatbelt.
“According to eyewitness accounts, icy roads were a factor,” said Assistant Police Supt. James Jackson.
Police said Haymaker was en route to a burglary call at Consolidated Communications, 3167 N. Clark, when he crashed early Monday morning.
His squad car was southbound on Lake Shore Drive near Irving Park Road when he veered off the road and hit a tree in the median between the Inner and Outer Drives.
The impact was so great that it also took down a light pole and ripped the door right off the car.
The crash shut down southbound Lake Shore Drive for several hours, tying up traffic headed toward downtown Chicago.
The roads were slick from snow and rain at the time. Lake Shore Drive had been plowed, but it was still wet and possibly slushy.
Haymaker was the only person in the vehicle. He was taken to Illinois Masonic, where he was later pronounced dead.
On Monday afternoon, the official mourning flag was already flying at half staff outside the 23rd Police District at Addison and Halsted. That’s where Haymaker had worked since December. Before that, he spent many years working out of the 15th District on Chicago’s far west side.
“Words cannot express the sorrow we feel at his loss,” said Supt. Jackson.
Haymaker followed his grandfather, father and uncle into police work, which was “in his blood,” said his brother-in-law, Ron Vogelpohl.
Outside the sergeant’s Northwest Side home, a police car sat parked. An officer inside told reporters his wife and daughters did not want to be disturbed.
But one neighbor said Haymaker was a good guy who always looked out for the neighborhood.
Haymaker joined the Chicago Police Department after working as an assistant pastor at a former Evangelical church in Jefferson Park, and he brought a pastor’s sensitivity to his police work, Vogelpohl said.
“He treated his fellow officers and the public as human beings,” Vogelpohl said. “Hie religion was very important to him. He never forced it on anybody, but it came through in how he treated people, and it’s what made him such a great cop and great man.”
A keen guitarist and fan of classic rock, he “was proud to be a police officer,” Vogelpohl added.
With his family and fellow officers standing by, Haymaker’s body was transported from the hospital to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office Monday morning. A string of about a dozen police vehicles followed in a procession.
Wellington Street outside the hospital was lined with police cars all morning, as officers arrived in waves to pay their respects to their fallen colleague and his family.
The Hundred Club of Cook County, a civilian organization that provides financial assistance to the families of police and fire personnel killed in the line of duty, will be providing the widow of Sgt. Alan Haymaker with a $15,000 check to cover immediate expenses and has committed to paying the educational expenses of his children through college.
“The Hundred Club initially presents the widow with a $15,000 check,” Michele Rabenda, Director of Development for the Hundred Club, said Monday afternoon.
“Within the next couple of weeks, we’ll meet with her” to go over her family’s expenses and financial obligations and the organization is prepared to give Sgt. Haymaker’s family up to an additional $50,000, Rabenda said.
The organization also provides educational assistance up to the college level for the families, Rabenda said, so for the couple’s children who attend college — Rabenda believes they have a 16-year-old daughter — those expenses would be covered.
A police department spokesperson says funeral arrangements have not been announced. He said an autopsy would be performed and the investigation into the crash continues, in part to determine if any other factors may have contributed to the crash.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services