About two years ago, when Zachary Martinez was new to the San Diego Police Department, his field training officer sometimes took him to a park in Clairemont.
The place had playgrounds, a basketball court and large open fields. The two officers would walk around as children kicked soccer balls in the grass.
“I like to make sure this park stays good,” Martinez recalled his supervisor saying.
That supervisor, Austin Machitar, was killed on duty last year. On Sunday morning, the place he once patrolled was formally renamed Officer Austin Machitar Memorial Park.
Hundreds gathered on Oct. 26, 2025 for a ceremony dedicating a Clairemont recreation area as Officer Austin Machitar Memorial Park. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
More than 200 people gathered for a ceremony unveiling the new sign, including dozens of Machitar’s relatives as well as law enforcement leaders and elected officials. Some had personal connections to the area: Police Chief Scott Wahl and Mayor Todd Gloria said they’d grown up playing on those same fields.
“Every time a family gathers underneath the trees of this beautiful park,” Gloria told the crowd, “they will see Austin’s name and be reminded of a young man who gave everything he had to make this city safer, kinder and stronger.”
Choosing to rename what was previously called North Clairemont Park was also fitting because of Machitar’s history with sports, especially baseball. He’d been so good on one club team that his coach, Tito Barba, once lambasted Machitar for not working harder.
“You could really go play at a high level,” Barba recalled saying. Machitar, however, just smacked the coach playfully on the shoulder. “He goes, ‘I’m just here to be with my friends.’” The exchange upended Barba’s entire approach to coaching.
Instead of being focused on who might turn pro, Barba now sees the kids he teaches as people with all sorts of goals. “He’s helped me to really connect with my players,” Barba said.
His current team of 12-year-olds wears patches on their uniforms bearing Machitar’s badge number.
A high school teammate, Sammy Perez, was similarly impressed with Machitar’s skills on the field. Machitar seemed to effortlessly bounce between positions, including catcher and first base. Yet as the two attended classes together at Otay Ranch High School and Southwestern College, Perez said he, too, decided on a career in law enforcement partially because of conversations with Machitar.
Both men ended up in the same academy class together, and a photo on display at Sunday’s ceremony showed them standing one row apart.
Even then, Machitar was still aiding Perez. The two happened to be hanging out right before their first day of training, and Machitar noticed that Perez was struggling to shine his boots. Machitar finally took the boots, picked up a cotton swab and started scrubbing.
“I showed up to the academy, Day One, and my boots looked amazing,” said Perez, now with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office. He didn’t tell anyone how they’d gotten so shiny. “Nobody knows about it — this is the first time I’ve ever said it.”
Chris Machitar holds up his son’s mitt at the dedication of the newly named Officer Austin Machitar Memorial Park in Clairemont on Oct. 26, 2025. (Ariana Drehsler / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Even if Machitar didn’t want a career in baseball, he continued to love the sport as a cop.
One day after a shift, Machitar excitedly told his dad that he’d just had an “11-15.” His father, a retired sheriff’s deputy, knew exactly what that code meant: “Ball game in the street.”
“So he throws on his lights, he gets out of his car, and all the kids are thinking, ‘Oh no, we’re in trouble’ and they’re all starting to scramble,” the father, Chris Machitar, told Sunday’s crowd. “He goes: ‘No, no, wait!’”
Austin Machitar ran to the back of his vehicle, opened the trunk, pulled out a mitt and joined the game, his dad said. “He was the happiest I’d ever seen him in a long, long time.”
Machitar died Aug. 26, 2024, after his vehicle was hit by a teenage driver fleeing other officers. He was 30 years old. Martinez, Machitar’s trainee who later became his partner, was seriously injured in the same crash but was able to return to duty late last year.
The driver also died. A police spokesperson said an inquiry into the incident by the California Highway Patrol has yet to be completed.
Several tables at the park displayed memorials for Machitar. Members of a Chula Vista church made a quilt with Machitar’s image. An honorary Padres jersey bore his name, while a letter from former President Joe Biden expressed condolences.
Machitar’s dog, a 4-year-old chocolate Labrador named Sarge, roamed the grass nearby. Further away, a boy kicked a soccer ball against a wall and a man pushed a toddler on a swing. All in all, the park looked good.