Officer Charles D. Goss had just completed his investigation of a five-car collision. As he left the site, his patrol car was struck head-on by a vehicle attempting to pass a truck. Goss was killed instantly. The 39-year-old officer was a 1952 graduate of the CHP Academy and the Madera Area was his first assignment. Charges were filed against the driver for attempting to pass the truck without sufficient clearance.

Deputy Falkowski was assigned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Norwalk Station at the time of his death. Deputy Falowski, 28, suffered a heart attack while attempting to disperse an unruly crowd of juveniles in the unincorporated area of West Whittier.

Deputy William Littlejohn, 43, and his partner Deputy Stan Kirkman were rushing an attempt suicide victim to a downtown hospital when his patrol car was struck by a drunk driver. Deputy Littlejohn’s injuries took his life two days after the accident.

Kirkman returned to duty after recuperating from minor injuries.

The drunk driver was convicted of felony drunk driving.

Deputy Littlejohn joined the Sheriff’s Department in November of 1952 and was a resident deputy in Citrus Heights. Deputy Littlejohn was cremated and the location of his remains is unknown.

Officer James E. Maroney responded to a call for assistance put out by the Modoc County Sheriff in apprehending an armed suspect. As officers closed in, the suspect opened fire and Officer Maroney was killed during the ensuing gun battle. The 33-year-old patrolman had transferred to Alturas from Fresno just two months earlier.

California Highway Patrol Officer John Calvin LaMar, 30, died 18 days after suffering injuries in vehicle accident. LaMar had been unconscious in a Bakersfield hospital since the accident which involved a large-model sedan and two other vehicles on Highway 99, north of Greenfield. Officer LaMar and a tow-truck operator, Al Miller, were critically injured when a 1953 Mercury ran into the rear of a stalled 1937 Oldsmobile in the northbound lane of the fog-shrouded highway.

Miller had been dispatched in a tow truck after CHP officer G.E. Montgomery noticed the stalled vehicle as he was coming off duty at the Tejon Scale house. LaMar and officer J.M. Gavin were assigned to work with the tow truck operator in clearing the road.

Gavin had taken the driver of the 37 model sedan into custody. Miller hooked up the stalled vehicle to his tow truck and had pulled it to the northbound lane when the towing chain broke at a wink link. It was while LaMar and Miller were standing on the dividing island of the four-lane highway that the Mercury hit the rear end of the Oldsmobile.

LaMar received head injuries, the patrolman also suffered internal injuries and an operation was attempted to substitute an artificial kidney for the injured member.

LaMar left behind a wife and two young sons. He was a member of the Bakersfield CHP office since graduating from the patrol’s Sacramento academy a few months earlier.