On Wednesday, two reputed gang members were sentenced for the 2009 murder of Chicago Police Officer Alejandro "Alex" Valadez. Maximum prison terms of 120 years for Kevin Walker, 25, and 105 years for Christopher Harris, 25 , were handed down.

In imposing the sentences, Judge Jorge Alonso called Valadez “one of the best of us.”

A third defendant, Shawn Gaston, was sentenced in 2011 to 125 years in prison, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Valadez, 27, was killed while investigating a report of shots fired in Englewood, a violent district he’d transferred to in hopes of making a difference.

“We were so proud of the fact that we were serving the city in which we were born and raised,” said the murdered officer's sister Brenda Valadez, who become a Chicago police officer four years before her brother. “We wanted to make a difference.”