Chicago Sun Times
CHICAGO — He was a third-generation Chicago cop with a pastor’s sensitivity.
Sgt. Alan Haymaker, 56, was killed in a crash Monday morning as he responded to a burglary call.
Haymaker joined the police department 21 years ago, following the footsteps of his grandfather, father and uncle. He was associate pastor of an evangelical church in Jefferson Park before he became an officer.
“Al was a servant type,” said Michael Mealer, commander of the Albany Park District. “Police work was a calling, whether he was making an arrest or holding someone’s hand.”
Haymaker was driving south on Lake Shore Drive shortly after 5 a.m. when he skidded off the road and crashed into a light pole. Haymaker, who was wearing a seat belt, died about 2? hours later. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers beneath a tree where his squad car came to rest just north of Irving Park Road.
Icy roads were likely a factor, said Assistant Supt. James Jackson, adding, “Words cannot express the sorrow we feel at his loss.”
Haymaker -- who transferred to the Town Hall District in December after years of working in high-crime districts on the West Side -- was trying to get to Consolidated Communications in the 3100 block of North Clark, where a witness reported burglars smashed the windows.
Dozens of cell phones were stolen from the business, said owner David Lee.
Lee said he’d installed bulletproof windows after a similar burglary a year ago.
In Monday’s heist, one of the thieves pried open the front door when he couldn’t get in through the glass, Lee said.
Lee expressed surprise that burglars would target such a busy spot, just yards from a 24-hour Starbucks.
“I feel sorry for that police officer,” Lee said. “This is just terrible.”
Detectives were looking at surveillance videos from nearby businesses and a police camera to see if they could identify the two burglars and a white van the men may have used to get away.
Haymaker, a married father of three daughters, also was an accomplished guitarist and a fan of classic rock.
On his classmates.com profile, a photo shows him posing with his guitar. Haymaker wrote that his friends from Bogan High School would describe him as the “evenest of even keels.”
Haymaker was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Peace Officers.
Cmdr. Mealer, a fellow member, said they went to church together.
“I never worked with Al, but in our small groups, he would talk about ministering to people when he was in the streets,” Mealer said. “If he saw someone in pain, he would say, ‘are you OK?’ ”
Police work was “in his blood,” said Haymaker’s brother-in-law, Ron Vogelpohl.
“He treated his fellow officers and the public as human beings,” Vogelpohl said. “His 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.”
Martha Baranowski -- a 91-year-old neighbor of Haymaker in Portage Park on the Northwest Side -- tearfully remembered him as “a wonderful, wonderful man.”
She said that when she fell sick while her family was out of town four years ago, Haymaker and his wife, Elaine, saved the day.
“I felt so sick, and I had nobody,” Baranowski said. “I didn’t want to call 911, and he offered to take me.”
Once they got to the hospital, “They wouldn’t leave me,” Baranowski said.
Haymaker often shared stories about his work and his belief in an afterlife at Bethel Community Church, which he and his family attended.
“It’s easy to become cynical if you’re dealing every day with criminals, prostitutes and broken people, but he tried to treat them in a loving and caring way,” said Rob Bukowski, an associate pastor at Bethel.
“This morning was certainly devastating for his wife and family, but it was also a realization of everything he believed,” Bukowski said. “He wanted to be with Jesus.”
If the burglars are caught, it’s possible they could be charged with felony murder, said Timothy O’Neill, a professor at John Marshall Law School.
Under Illinois law, anyone who commits a felony can be convicted of murder if it’s proved their actions were a “contributing cause” to a victim’s death.
Prosecutors wouldn’t have to show the burglary was the “sole and immediate cause of death” or that the burglars could have known “the exact manner in which the victim would die.”
O’Neill said he was aware of cases in which felony murder charges were filed after an officer in pursuit of a fleeing criminal crashed and died, but none in which the officer was en route to a crime scene.
“A felony murder conviction could be won in many jurisdictions in a case like this,” he said. “Whether Illinois is one of them, I can’t be sure, but the theory is the same.”
He said the felony murder law is “a prosecutor’s best friend -- it gives them a lot of power because it’s so broadly drawn.”
Copyright 2010 Chicago Sun Times