Interim Police Supt. Charlie Beck identifies the Chicago officer who died from COVID-19.
A funeral for the first Chicago Police officer to die from complications of the coronavirus will look unlike any funeral for a city officer in memory.
To protect Marco DiFranco’s fellow officers and other mourners from the virus, there will be no crowded church, no streets lined with officers and others and no packed cemetery — a show of respect that has for generations comforted the families of fallen officers.
Instead, for DiFranco’— whose death was determined a line-of-duty death by Interim Police Superintendent Charlie Beck — there will be on Thursday morning be a private service at a funeral home attended only by family.
Then, the funeral procession will take the officer’s remains to All Saints Catholic Cemetery in Des Plaines. The department's mounted unit will then escort the casket from the hearse to the grave site for a service attended only by the family and the department's command staff.
DiFranco’s fellow officers will join the procession in their vehicles but they are being asked to remain in their vehicles. They won't be allowed to drive onto the cemetery grounds.
The 50-year-old DiFranco, a decorated undercover narcotics officer died last week. He is survived by his wife and two children.
