A San Diego Police Department officer who died earlier this month was posthumously promoted to sergeant by the Chief of Police Thursday as the department said farewell to their colleague, gone far too soon.
“Carly’s last assignment was an acting sergeant at Northeastern Division,” SDPD Chief David Nisleit posted on Twitter. “Today, I posthumously promoted her to sergeant. She earned it. Rest easy Sergeant Carly Medina.”
In the tweet, the chief includes a photo of himself and another SDPD colleague alongside Medina. Nisleit said Medina’s squadmates will forever remember the young officer-turned-sergeant as “kind, caring, thoughtful, hardworking, absolutely fantastic, and humble.”
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The posthumous promotion from Medina’s boss came on the same day as the police department’s procession in her honor, in which squad vehicles traveled from Poway to Medina’s memorial at Shadow Mountain Church in El Cajon.
Along the way, officers stood on freeway overpasses, saluting Medina and paying their final respects to one of their own.
At her memorial, the chief promoted Medina “effective immediately,” saying she had been so close to becoming a sergeant before her untimely death.
SDPD Lt. Adam Sharki said Medina died unexpected on Aug. 10 from unspecified medical complications. She was only 30 years old.
Sharki said Medina was hired as a police recruit on Oct. 24, 2014. She was assigned to the Northeastern Division.
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Medina is survived by her husband, Rogelio “Roy” Medina, who is also an SDPD officer, and her parents.
A Time of Loss for the San Diego Police Department
Nisleit said it’s been a tough year for the SDPD, losing several of their officers unexpectedly.
This past February, Officer David Sisto, 39, went into medical distress while on the job and died. Last week, his friends and colleagues showed up at his family’s house to take his oldest son, Jameson Sisto, to his first day of kindergarten – SDPD squad car and all.
In June, married SDPD detectives Ryan Park, 32, and Jamie Huntley-Park, 33, were killed in a head-on crash in San Ysidro when a wrong-way driver plowed into their car.
At their memorial, Nisleit called the pair “inseparable.” They had met at the police academy in 2012.
Last month, the department held a belated and emotional memorial for former San Diego Padres catcher-turned SDPD Officer Dan Walters.
Walters died on April 23, 2020, from health complications stemming from injuries he suffered in 2003 when he was shot on the job. The pandemic kept his colleagues from being able to give him a proper sendoff in 2020, but last month, they promised Walter he would never be forgotten.
