Slain CPD Officer Aréanah Preston honored with renamed street: ‘We’ll never forget her valor’

Before slain Chicago police Officer Aréanah Preston’s mother helped pull off a cover to unveil a street sign honoring her daughter, she prayed the city would remember the ambitious, vibrant young woman she raised.

“I promise your name will be the change you wanted to see,” Preston’s mother, Dionne Mhoon, told the hundreds gathered to remember Preston Saturday.

City and police leaders including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his CPD superintendent nominee Chief Larry Snelling joined the 24-year-old’s family and friends to honor her by renaming the Avalon Park stretch of South Blackstone Avenue where she was killed in May.

Teachers remembered Preston as an ambitious and engaged student determined to make a positive change in the world. Friends recalled her texts and spunk. Her younger sisters described her as a role model.

And to Mhoon, Preston, who died just six days before she was set to graduate with a master’s degree in jurisprudence from Loyola University, was “my sunflower.”

“This sign represents a girl with dreams and aspirations bigger than most people can even imagine,” Mhoon said.

Mhoon said she hopes her daughter’s death would lead to more effective gun safety laws, push parents to better monitor their kids and lead Chicagoans to see police officers “in another light.”

“Police officers deserve respect, love and the right to be able to make it home,” Mhoon said. “It’s OK to do that — make a difference.”

The crowd gathered on the quiet block where Preston was fatally shot at 1:45 a.m. May 6 while returning home. In a blocked off intersection near a street lined by short, green lawns and two-story brick homes, they cheered as the officer’s family removed a sleeve to unveil “Officer Aréanah M. Preston Way.”

“Aréanah was more than a student. She was more than a police officer. She was our hope,” said Susan Woollen, an administrator at Illinois State University, where Preston studied criminal justice as an undergraduate student.

“And as long as Aréanah remains in our hearts, may goodness and righteousness flow through her blessed memory,” she continued.

Preston was also honored at a vigil Wednesday night at the city’s Gold Star Families Memorial. Johnson recalled the memorial’s marble wall her name is now etched into as he spoke Saturday.

“We’ll never forget her valor, her exemplary dedication to the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “We must also support all of the men and women who wear the badge of honor, our first responders.”

He praised Preston’s dream to “make a difference” and called on the city to continue to support her family.

“I’m prepared and willing to do what is necessary to build a better, stronger and a much safer Chicago,” said Johnson, who attended Preston’s funeral two days after being sworn in as mayor.

The four teens arrested two days after Preston was shot in her police uniform are being held without bail at Cook County Jail, court and jail records show. Prosecutors alleged the group had set out on a deadly crime spree before killing Preston and selling her gun in an effort to get money for a barbecue.

The three accused adults — Trevell Breeland, 19, Joseph Brooks, 19, and Jakwon Buchanan, 18 — pleaded not guilty to the slew of felony charges they face in June, according to court records.

Speaking earlier, John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, said people had gathered “to remember, to honor and to commemorate.”

“But we should do more than that,” he said. “There needs to be some accountability for violent criminal behavior.”

Chief Snelling, who awaits a vote in City Council on his appointment as CPD superintendent, told the crowd he used to advise cadets at the police academy they needed first to become exemplary people in order to become exemplary officers.

“Aréanah was both,” he said.

He told Preston’s family to look around at the people gathered around them — elected officials, dozens of uniformed officers, police union leaders, fellow Gold Star Families and dozens of friends.

“This is your family,” he said. “And we’re going to continue to be here as part of the family. So we throw a barbecue, make plenty of ribs, because we’re coming.”