“Twenty-two years on the force, and he was training a new, young officer. “I made him promise me, ‘Michael, no matter what you do, do good things,’” Tony Paredes, who is a military veteran, said Wednesday. He recalled when his nephew approached him about joining the police academy in the late ’90s and asked him to write a letter recommending the then-aspiring officer to the department. He said that, as a child, the El Monte officer was kind, attentive and respected his elders. Like Santana, Paredes was also compelled to give back to the city that raised him, his uncle, Tony Paredes, said. She lamented never again being able to see “his smile, his sarcasm, just seeing him around his kids.” She has been somewhat comforted by the company of loved ones, but only “very little,” she said. On Wednesday, she said she was grieving with relatives in Upland, and was struggling to process the loss. “Before, he worked in the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department … but then he landed his dream job as an officer serving the community he grew up in,” Santana’s mother said. That relationship inspired him to pursue a career in law enforcement. When he was growing up, Joseph Santana looked up to his stepfather, who was also an El Monte police officer, his mother said. He liked to play basketball, was generous with his time when off-duty and always eager to help a friend in need. Santana’s mother described him as a reserved person who shared his relentless, cutting sense of dry humor with those he was close with. “He would be tired on his days off, but he was always taking them to Disneyland or Speedzone, or just playing baseball with them in the yard.” “He was such a loving father,” the younger officer’s mother, Olga Santana, said through tears Wednesday. Santana leaves behind his wife, a 9-year-old daughter and 2-year-old twin boys.
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