Officer Dennis F. Webb, 30, was shot six times at close range by the man he stopped on December 24 because he fit the description of an armed robber who had held up a 7-Eleven market in nearby Sylmar about 90 minutes earlier.

The killer drove off in Webb’s black and white patrol car, abandoning it in the park about eight miles from the shooting scene.

Two fellow officers were enroute to back up Webb as he questioned the suspect when the gunfire erupted. They reached the fallen patrolman 90 seconds after his last radio transmission, but by that time the gunman was gone.

The officers carried Webb to the patrol car, rushed him to Holy Cross Hospital about a half mile away. Webb, married and a five-year veteran of the small San Fernando department, died in surgery at 5:50 a.m.

Webb had survived the ordeal of Vietnam and had been honorably discharged from the Armed Forces in 1975. He was currently a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve.