Amid the harsh empty sadness of death, a powerful legacy arising from the recent passing of 32-year-old Lompoc police Officer Yobanie Martinez can help light the darkness.
The sterling examples of honor and goodness he left behind shine bright as a new police badge, soft as an innocent and respectful kiss on the cheek.
Not long after moving across country to Santa Maria in 2002 I met Yobanie and his many first cousins, all small children with whom my then partner and now wife, Stephanie, and I became friends.
Trying to learn Spanish, I’d bring pizza when we showed up once a week for an “English/Spanish” class at the Lopez home, where even the smallest kids helped me struggle to speak “Mexican.”
Eight-year-old Yobanie stood by my side as one of my biggest little helpers. Handsome and polite, he exhibited an Old World dignity the likes of which I have not seen since among young or old.
Over the next few years, Yobanie always behaved the same reverential way whenever he and I met at weddings, birthday parties, quinceañeras, baptisms or other Lopez and Martinez family events to which Stephanie and I were always invited.
Our new extended families welcomed us like we, too, hailed from Sinaloa or Michoacán, Mexico, where Yobanie’s parents and grandparents were born.
After shaking hands, Yobanie never failed to lean in and give me a kiss on the cheek as a sign of respect, affection and greeting to an elder, a sincere gesture he learned in a big family loaded with hard work, love and tradition.
This simple, yet powerful, gesture that spoke to his values, morality and character also marks the sign of a good cop.
Graduating in 2023 from the Allan Hancock College Law Enforcement Academy and employed as a custodian in the school district to help support his wife, Edith, and their four children, Gyanna, Roselyn, Alynna and Daniel, Yobanie knew helping people shaped the cornerstone of his life.
Working as a police officer for three years with a bright future, Yobanie went beyond the call of duty until the end.
Now 75, I’ve covered cops and crime as a journalist for decades. My detective father also served as one of the most highly decorated hero cops in the history of the Pennsylvania State Police, the oldest police organization in the nation.
Parade Magazine once named him as one of the top 10 cops in the country. I know a good cop when I see one.
Yobanie Martinez was a good cop.
When I last saw Yobanie on a visit to Santa Maria a few years ago after moving “Back East” 20 years ago, we shook hands as old friends.
With pride he introduced Stephanie and me to his wife. Too grown up for a kiss on the cheek, I sensed in his gentle spirit the bold confidence of a mature adult.
I saw a man with a mission and a future.
True respect never dies. We should learn from Yobanie’s stellar example that integrity and compassion matter. The best cops and the best people already know that.
