CHICAGO — Just days before he would have entered college, Alex Ruiz, an aspiring police officer, became a victim of street violence.
Ruiz, 22, was killed early Aug. 19 at Cermak and Pulaski roads, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Ruiz, of the 2700 block of South Harding Avenue, graduated from Farragut Career Academy High School. He was surrounded by gang activity there but never partook, according to his sister Lidia, 31.
“You could see a lot of boys around that don’t want to better themselves, but he really did,” she said. “He wanted to make a change.”
He was enrolled at Daley College, where his sister said he was going to study to be a police officer.
The third of four children, Ruiz often babysat for the children of his three sisters. Ruiz especially loved his nephew Jadyn.
And though he was a shy young man, he had a boisterous laugh that will be missed, she said.
“Sometimes you’d hear a laugh in the neighborhood,” she said, “and you’d know it was Alex.”
