Slain Chicago cop's handcuffs were placed on his accused killer following a tradition to honor fallen cops

After Chicago police Officer Luis Huesca was killed, he symbolically still played a part in the capture of the man accused of shooting him.

In a practice followed across the country to honor fallen cops, a Chicago police officer slapped Huesca’s handcuffs on 22-year-old Xavier Tate of Aurora when he was arrested Wednesday in Glendale Heights.

Huesca was in uniform when he was April 21 while driving from work to his Gage Park apartment on the Southwest Side, authorities said. His stolen Toyota 4Runner was found nearby.

The off-duty officer’s missing gun was recovered April 26 after a relative of Tate tossed the weapon from a window of a Morgan Park apartment, police said. The same day, a warrant was issued for Tate’s arrest on charges of murder, possession of a stolen weapon and carjacking.

According to a police source, after Huesca was killed, officers retrieved his handcuffs from his locker in Area 2 headquarters at 727 E. 111th St., where he was part of the priority response team.

On Wednesday, officers with the Chicago Police Department's fugitive apprehension unit and the U.S. Marshals’ Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force reportedly found Tate hiding under a sink in a Glendale Heights apartment.

A Chicago police officer in the fugitive unit placed Huesca’s handcuffs on Tate, the source says.

“This is a long, well-established practice that pays tribute to the officer who died,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research, a national law enforcement organization based in Washington.

Over the past few years, there have been more than a dozen news reports across the country of suspected cop-killers being arrested with the slain officer’s handcuffs, including cases last year in New York City and Philadelphia.

The history of the practice is unclear. Phil Cline, who was Chicago's police superintendent from 2003 to 2007, says he thinks it’s been going on in Chicago for less than a decade.

“I think it’s a great idea, and the family appreciates it, and the cops who worked on the case appreciate it,” says Cline, who is a former executive director of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation, which provides assistance to the families of fallen officers.

“It’s a way of showing that, even though the officer is not with us, he is having a part in the arrest of the person who killed them,” Cline says. “Yes, you are sending a message to the bad guy, but you’re not taunting him.”