Fallen officer Richard Mendez, a father, husband, and ‘true hero,’ is laid to rest

Mia Carrero stood at the front of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on Tuesday morning, a replica of her father’s police badge hanging around her neck.

She looked out to the crowd of hundreds of law enforcement officers and city leaders who gathered to honor her father, Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez, who was shot and killed in the line of duty earlier this month.

Carrero, 19, recalled how, as her father left to begin his shift that night, she asked him: “Can you call out sick? I want you to stay home with us tonight.”

“No, mami,” he told her. He had to go to work. He kissed her on the cheek and headed off on what he did not know would be the last day of his life.

As he began his shift, Mendez and his partner attempted to stop a car theft at the Philadelphia International Airport, and a man came from behind and started shooting.

Mendez, a 22-year veteran, was struck multiple times in his torso, and his partner, Officer Raul Ortiz, was shot once in the arm. Both were rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where Mendez died shortly after arrival.

» READ MORE: The Philly airport has no cameras in its parking garages, which caused challenges after Officer Richard Mendez was killed

In her eulogy, Carrero recalled the harrowing car ride as she and her mother raced to the hospital.

“As we were driving there, ’Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ started to play, and I knew my daddy had left us,” she said, her voice quavering. “I knew we were too late.”

It was, as Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford put it Tuesday, an “unforgivable night.”

Mendez is the third law enforcement officer to be killed in Philadelphia since 2015, and the second this year, after Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald was slain under similar circumstances: pursuing a car theft, and shot by a young man with a gun.

The Oct. 12 shooting marked the 10th time that a law enforcement officer had been shot in the city since January — a harsh reality in a city where an escalating gun-violence crisis has spared few and touched many. Since 2020, more than 1,900 people have been killed in homicides in Philadelphia, the vast majority by guns.

“On that tragic evening, Officer Mendez did what our city’s first responders do each and every day, no matter the hour or the circumstance,” Mayor Jim Kenney said during the funeral Mass. “They leave their loved ones and carry out their sworn duty to protect and serve the residents of Philadelphia.”

Three young men from South Jersey have been arrested and charged in the shooting: Alexander Batista-Polanco, 21; Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 18; and Hendrick Peña-Fernandez, 21. Police believe a fourth person — Jesus Herman Madera Duran, 18 — was accidentally shot by his friend amid the melee. The group dropped him off at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, then fled, and Duran died a short time later.

Richard Carrero Mendez was remembered Tuesday as a thoughtful friend, loving father, and “true hero” to the city. He was born in Puerto Rico on June 22, 1973. In high school, he met his future wife, Alex. She was just 14 at the time and wasn’t allowed to date, so he waited four years, until she graduated high school, to ask her out.

They quickly fell in love and got married. They moved to Philadelphia, and in 2000, Mendez enrolled in the Philadelphia Police Academy.

On Tuesday, Commissioner Stanford posthumously promoted Mendez to sergeant, a rank he now shares with his late father, who served in the New York Police Department.

In 2004, when the couple had Mia — their first and only child — Mendez took on the most prized role of his life: being a father. Mia Carrero said he was “their rock,” and always emphasized the importance of education. He regularly checked to make sure her assignments were done and proofread school essays. If she was ever flustered about an exam, he calmed her nerves. “We got this,” he’d say.

Mendez pursued higher education on his own while working full-time — sometimes staying up to study until 4 a.m. In 2014, he earned an associate’s degree in business administration, and in 2016, he graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in the same field. The following year, he was awarded his master’s degree in business administration.

He planned to retire soon, his daughter said, and wanted to teach in his spare time.

“Surviving without my daddy will be difficult for the both of us, but we know he wouldn’t want us to give up, so we won’t,” she said.

Then, she spoke of Philadelphia’s ongoing crime and gun violence crisis. Her family, she said, had long feared that the city’s escalating crime would touch them, and said criminals in the city are growing bolder.

“The strongest man in my life — my hero, my life, my daddy — was taken from me, from us,” she said. “And I am unbelievably scared.”

The basilica, filled with hundreds of family members and fellow police officers from across the region, was silent.

» READ MORE: Car thefts at the Philadelphia Airport have risen sharply since before the pandemic

After prayers were shared and scriptures read, the crowd slowly filed out of the cathedral. Mendez’s casket, draped in an American flag, was rolled outside, where hundreds of his brothers and sisters in blue stood in salute.

As Mendez’s body was loaded into the hearse, his family stood on the steps of the cathedral, their arms interlocked. The stirring sound of bagpipes, playing the Celtic song “Danny Boy,” echoed through the park.

Mia Carrero, holding back tears, looked up to the sky.

The procession pulled away from the basilica and headed toward Forest Hills Cemetery. There, Mendez was buried amid the rolling hills of Huntingdon Valley, but will forever be in the hearts of all who loved him.