North Las Vegas officer killed in crash fulfilled his law-enforcement, personal dreams

North Las Vegas police Detective Chad Parque wanted to be a cop when he was 15 years old, and at 16 he dreamed of marrying the girl he was dating.

Parque did both things — and well, by all accounts — before he was killed by a wrong-way driver while on duty on Jan. 6.

Hundreds of people gathered Tuesday afternoon at Henderson’s Central Christian Church to remember the dedicated officer who also cared deeply for his community.

North Las Vegas Police Chief Alexander Perez praised the fallen officer as a dedicated and caring cop. He said Parque developed a reputation as a go-getter soon after joining the department, describing him as an unrelenting “foot soldier fighting for victims.”

“Every hour of every day, our officers are dealing with fractions,” Perez said. “I am not talking about math. I am talking about that fraction of a second that steals a loved one away from their family and friends. That one random second that causes a loss, that shakes up a community. It is that moment that changes everything forever.

“For the North Las Vegas Police Department and the family of Detective Chad Parque, that moment was at 1:39 p.m. on Jan. 7,” he said, referring to the time of Parque’s death. “It was a moment where a law enforcement family lost one of our own and broke our hearts.”

Parque was kind and cared about his community, Perez said. When he arrested young people, he didn’t just take them to jail — he sat and had a talk with them about turning their life around, he said.

“Chad always tried hard to make an impact,” he said.

The speakers at the service all were from valley police departments, but a lot was said about the person he was.

His favorite color was blue, he loved the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” and he was a “sneakerhead,” meaning he was obsessed with colorful athletic shoes. He also was a gadget guy — older cops were shocked the first time they saw him talking into the smartwatch on his wrist. He was a neat-freak and a bit of a germ-phobe and a master of the “Yo Momma” style of jokes.

At work he cared deeply about his co-workers, to whom he constantly bragged about his family. He was also the kind of detective who could track suspects using geotags on social media posts or a series of IP addresses.

“He wanted to be a police officer more than anything in the world,” North Las Vegas Detective Michael Yarder said.

Parque joined the Metropolitan Police Department’s teen development program when he was 15. He was a consummate professional and rose through the ranks to become captain of the group in a few short years.

At 19, Parque broke the news to Metro Sgt. Todd Richter that he was going to apply to be a civilian report taker for North Las Vegas police. Richter, who was running the teen program at the time, tried to convince him that Metro had more to offer.

“He looks at me, and he goes, ‘I want to be a North Las Vegas officer because it’s a smaller community, it’s a smaller police department and I live in North Las Vegas and I want to protect my community,” Richter remembered. “I knew he’d do well.”

After the service, a lengthy police motorcade escorted the Parque family to a graveside service at the Palm Mortuary at 6701 N. Jones Blvd. He is survived by his wife, Jessica, their 3-year-old, Riley, his parents and a sister.

Parque was involved in a head-on collision with a car going the wrong way on Martin Luther King Boulevard. He was leaving the North Las Vegas Justice Court parking lot in a department vehicle on the afternoon when it was struck, police said. The detective had to be cut from his vehicle and died the next day.

Contact Wesley Juhl at wjuhl@reviewjournal.com and 702-383-0391. Follow @WesJuhl on Twitter.