A knack for public service was one of Chicago police Officer John Bartholomew’s defining qualities, friends and neighbors recalled Sunday.

Bartholomew, 38, who had been with the police department for a decade, was identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as the officer fatally shot Saturday morning at a North Side hospital.

He was shot alongside a 57-year-old officer who was in critical condition as of Saturday afternoon.

Richard Hudock said he grew up on the same Morton Grove street as the Bartholomew family and became lifelong friends with John and his brother, Jim. The three boys spent their childhood playing video games together, and though they have grown and taken on a plethora of adult responsibilities, it’s a hobby they have never given up, he said.

The last time Hudock said he spoke to Bartholomew, on April 22, they planned a trip to Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield for May.

“It’s so sudden he’s gone now,” he said through tears. “And now I’m just never gonna see him again.”

Hudock described Bartholomew as “extremely generous” and having “the highest morals” of anyone he had ever met.

The 44-year-old Evanston resident recalled a difficult period in his life when he struggled with his mental health and finances. He remembers fondly a simple moment when he could not afford a $75 ball for his bowling league, and Bartholomew gave him $100 to cover the cost.

“He always just found a way to lift my spirits, he was a major shoulder for me to lean on,” Hudock said. “I don’t know if I would have made it through that terrible part of my life without him.”

Though the friends have seen each other only a few times a year recently, they always spoke on the phone at least once a month.

Hudock described Bartholomew as an excellent father to his daughter and stepsons and a supportive “family man” to his wife Renee, whom he married last summer.

“Kindness, that’s all he knew,” he said.

On the block in Edison Park where Bartholomew lived, neighbors and a crew of their young children tied blue ribbons on trees and railings Sunday morning.

Neighbors described the block on the edge of the city as a close-knit one where many residents are city workers or members of the police department.

Their children scattered their scooters and bikes about the block. A squad car was parked outside Bartholomew’s home.

Some neighbors expressed shock that tragedy had hit so close to home.

Jessi Galligan said Bartholomew lived across the street from her. She described him as an often-smiling man eager to help his neighbors. “When it snows, he was the first one out to help,” she said.

Bartholomew had a sense of humor, too, Galligan said.

“We one time just had a huge wasp nest,” Galligan said. “And we were like ‘John, come here, can you help us’ — always willing to help everybody,” she said. “And he goes, ‘What kind of National Geographic thing is this?’”

The shooting took place at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital in the Lincoln Square neighborhood, and both officers were rushed to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where Bartholomew was pronounced dead and the second officer remains.

The man who allegedly shot the officers while under medical observation at Swedish Hospital was one of a pair that had originally attempted to rob an Albany Park dollar store at gunpoint. The second man was still at large Saturday, internal police information shows.

The man in custody allegedly fired shots at the officers around 11 a.m. Saturday before he fled the hospital naked, and later was apprehended, officials said in a statement. The 57-year-old officer was not publicly identified as of Sunday morning, and no charges against the suspect had been announced.

Hospital officials said in a statement that the man was screened when he arrived at the hospital per “public safety weapon detection protocols,” and that he was escorted by law enforcement at all times.

According to a source with knowledge of the investigation and an internal CPD bulletin, police originally arrested the shooter just after 8 a.m. Saturday morning, when Albany Park (17th) District officers arrived at a Family Dollar at 3239 W. Lawrence Ave. for a call of an armed robbery in progress.

Two men had allegedly escorted a store employee to the store’s office at gunpoint, beat her up to the point of bleeding and facial injuries and demanded access to the cash register and searched the victim’s purse. Then they fled before police arrested one of the men at the intersection of Kedzie and Roscoe streets. The second man, according to the bulletin, remains at large, although police recovered his backpack from inside the Family Dollar.

Officers took the man in custody to Swedish Hospital for observation, police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Saturday.

Saturday’s shooting was akin to another deadly incident involving CPD in November 2018 at a hospital in Bronzeville.

A gunman went to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center — now Insight Hospital and Medical Center — and fatally shot Dr. Tamara O’Neal and pharmacy resident Dayna Less. The hospital was locked down for hours and a shootout with responding CPD officers followed. Twenty-eight-year-old officer Samuel Jimenez was killed in the gunfire.

The gunman, also killed in the shootout, was O’Neal’s former fiancé.

In 2020, a man who was under arrest for carjacking was able to hide a gun in his pants while he was taken to the Grand Central (25th) District station. Once there, he removed the gun and shot an officer, sparking a tense gun battle near the station. The suspect was also shot and paralyzed, and he was later sentenced to 31 years in prison.

In Lincoln Square on Saturday afternoon, nearly half a block of houses on West Carmen Avenue was sectioned off with police tape while police searched for the suspect.

On Sunday, the street was mostly quiet. Sinan Beskardes, 40, who was walking his dog, said he’d seen the manhunt from his window the previous morning.

Beskardes said he watched law enforcement line both sides of the street and gear up with SWAT shields and guns before ultimately apprehending the suspect.

“They pulled him out between one of these houses, like 20, 30 cops,” he said, before putting the man in a van.

He said he was glad no neighbors had been hurt and thought there should be better security at the hospital.

“Of course it’s scary, you know, to have something like that,” Beskardes said. “Especially knowing someone’s life is gone.”

(Chicago Tribune’s Sam Charles contributed.)

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