Visit Loomis Boulevard just off 49th Street in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood today, and you’ll find a mural honoring Chicago police officers and firefighters painted on a concrete embankment that once carried freight trains overhead.
The faces of police officers Alejandro Valadez, Thor Soderberg, and Thomas Wortham IV and firefighters Edward Stringer, Christopher Wheatley, and Cory Ankum flank the roadway ahead of the heavy rail overpass.
Valadez, Soderberg, and Wortham each gave the ultimate sacrifice after being shot in separate incidents — Valadez in 2009, Soderberg and Wortham in 2010. Wheatley died while fighting a fire in August 2010, Stringer and Ankum while fighting another fire months later…