Hollywood department’s loss is a loss for us all

olicing is a dangerous job. We hear that all the time, then tuck it away and move on. For the first time in years, South Florida got the worst reminder when a Hollywood police officer was killed in the line of duty.

Officer Yandy Chirino, 28, a Coral Park Senior High graduate, was fatally wounded Sunday night answering a call about a suspicious person trying to open car doors or rob homes on the 4000 block of North Hills Drive in the Emerald Hills community.

It sounded like a fairly routine call, but officers know that there’s not such thing. There were shots fired. Chirino was hit. Fellow officers at the scene placed Chirino in a cruiser and rushed him to the hospital, desperate to save his life.

Unfortunately, Chirino became the seventh Hollywood police officer to die while on duty in the department’s history.

An 18-year-old suspect with a long record, Jason Banegas, has been arrested. He faces a string of charges, including first-degree-murder.

Just after 2:15 p.m. Monday, scores of mourning officers from Hollywood’s police department and others crowded outside Memorial Regional Hospital and stood at attention. They escorted Chirino’s body, placed in a fire-rescue unit at the hospital where he has been pronounced dead, to the office of the Broward County medical examiner.

But first, Chirino was driven past the Hollywood Police Department, where officers stood outside and saluted.

Chirino earned his criminaljustice degree at Florida International University. He joined the Hollywood Police Department in 2017. He had family, friends and co-workers who loved him. He was named Officer of the Month in June 2020 and received a handful of supervisor commendations during his short career.

Monday was a brutal day for the Hollywood Police Department. In an unrelated incident, an unidentified lieutenant apparently committed suicide overnight in the parking lot of a Plantation mall.

As a patrol officer, Chirino was part of a dangerous — and embattled — profession. But he signed up, nevertheless, willing to put himself in the line of fire to keep the rest of us safe.

For which we all should be grateful.