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Officer Ella Grace French was 29 when a traffic stop ended the life she had devoted to helping others. On August 7, 2021, the Chicago police officer was shot and killed. Her partner, Carlos Yanez Jr., was critically wounded. A night on duty became a permanent loss for her family and a lasting wound for the city she served.
This Ella French memorial honors the person behind Star 15013: a daughter, a sister, a colleague, and an officer remembered for her compassion. Her life deserves more space than the circumstances of its ending.
A life dedicated to service
Ella joined the Chicago Police Department on April 16, 2018. By the night she was killed, she had served for more than three years. She worked in the 10th District and on the department’s Community Safety Team. Before joining Chicago police, she had worked as a corrections officer for the Cook County Sheriff’s Department. The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation preserves her service record and the details of her End of Watch.
Those assignments describe where she worked. The people who remembered her described how she treated others. Cook County’s official memorial resolution recognized her kindness and compassion, along with her commitment to safer communities. It also remembered her as Elizabeth’s daughter and the sister of Andrew, Julian, Christian, and Michael. Cook County memorial resolution.
That distinction matters. A uniform can make a person look like part of an institution. To her family, Ella was irreplaceable. To the people who worked alongside her, she was someone they knew, trusted, and expected to see again.
The stop that took her life
Ella was patrolling with Yanez and Officer Joshua Blas when they stopped an SUV with expired registration near 63rd Street and Bell Avenue. During the encounter, gunfire struck Ella and Yanez. Ella died, and Yanez survived devastating injuries. The Officer Down Memorial Page records her death on August 7, 2021, and preserves her name among the nation’s fallen officers.
There is no way to make that loss acceptable by calling it a danger of the job. Knowing a profession carries risks does not make a person’s death less cruel. Ella had a family, a future, and a life beyond that traffic stop. She should have had the chance to finish her shift and return to it.
Her partner’s survival did not erase the damage. The violence reached beyond the life it ended, leaving another officer and his loved ones to face consequences that would continue long after the night was over.
Justice, and what it could never return
In September 2024, Emonte Morgan was sentenced to life in prison for Ella’s murder. He also received a 50-year sentence for attempted murder. The sentencing followed a jury’s guilty verdict earlier that year. WTTW’s sentencing report.
Accountability matters. So does remembering the limit of what a courtroom can do. A sentence cannot return a daughter to her mother or a sister to her brothers. It cannot give Ella the years she should have had or undo the injuries her partner suffered.
Anger at that needless violence belongs in an honest remembrance. But the person who killed her should never become the center of her story. Ella’s name, face, and service are what deserve to endure.
A memorial that remembers the whole person
In 2025, Chicago added a tribute that reaches beyond a badge and a date. A bronze sculpture of Ella was unveiled at Wentworth Park on August 31, what would have been her 34th birthday. Artist Erick Blome created the work, which shows her kneeling with an arm around a dog. Her mother selected the design.
The Chicago Park District connects that choice to Ella’s love of animals, especially dogs. It is a moving way to remember her: a public tribute that also makes room for an ordinary, affectionate part of her life.
A memorial cannot fill the absence she left. It can give people who never met her a reason to pause, learn her name, and recognize that the officer in the portrait was a person with interests, relationships, and a future of her own.
Remembering Officer Ella Grace French
Ella’s watch ended before she reached her 30th birthday. Her willingness to serve, her compassion, and the love her family carries for her cannot be measured by the shortness of that life.
We remember her with sorrow for what was taken and gratitude for what she gave. Chicago lost an officer. Her family lost Ella. Both truths deserve to be held with care.
Officer Ella Grace French
Chicago Police Department, Illinois
Star 15013
End of Watch: August 7, 2021
Read more stories of service and sacrifice in our Heroes collection.
