A candlelight vigil in remembrance of fallen Alhambra Police Department Officer Alec Sanders, who was killed in the line of duty when his patrol cruiser collided with an allegedly stolen SUV during a chase, was held Tuesday night.
“I never heard one bad thing about him,” APD Chief Garrett Kennedy said after the vigil outside the department’s station. “When I would see him, I would ask him, ‘How things are going? Does he enjoy the police department?’ He said he loved it.”
Kennedy said Sanders’ family told him that Sanders had a passion for serving the community and being a police officer, that he just ”truly loved coming to work. He loved serving this community.”
Sanders, who had been with the Alhambra Police Department for just eight months, was covering the shift of a colleague when he was fatally injured. He previously worked for about a year with the Long Beach Police Department.
He is survived by a fiancée, two younger sisters and a brother.
Sanders, 28, died Thursday in the crash around 3 a.m. at the intersection of Edgewood Street and Valley Boulevard.
The crash also killed one of the passengers in the allegedly stolen silver Hyundai SUV. She was identified as 42-year-old Gabriela Moreno, who was ejected from the vehicle in the impact.
On Monday, the driver of the SUV, Steven Ara Zapata, 27, of El Monte, was charged with two counts of murder, one count of reckless driving on a highway causing a specified injury and two counts of fleeing a peace officer’s motor vehicle causing death.
Zapata also sustained moderate injuries in the crash and was taken to a hospital, where he was later arrested. It was unclear when Zapata would appear in court for arraignment.
A third person in the SUV, a 52-year-old man, also sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Source: NBC Los Angeles
Be First to Comment