Officer Steve W. Sodel, 48, was kidnapped and murdered by a motorist he had apparently stopped for suspicion of car theft. Sodel was assigned to check light and brake testing stations and when his patrol car was found abandoned, an intense search ensued which led a few days later to the discovery of Sodel’s body. A suspect was later captured, tried and convicted for the murder of Officer Sodel.

Officer Frank Maus, 35, was pursuing a speeder on Stocker Avenue and rounding a curve when his motorcycle hit the soft shoulder and overturned several times throwing him to the ground. Maus was a five-year member of the CHP and had just returned to duty after spending three years with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II.

In the mid-evening hours of June 27, 1944, an off-duty Berkeley police officer came upon a car sitting in the middle of the street. The motor was running and the radiator appeared to be boiling over. The officer approached the vehicle and saw that it was occupied by a man slumped over behind the steering wheel. He observed that the driver was alive but was having a difficult time breathing. Believing the man to have suffered a heart attack, the officer check further.

At that point he observed that the man in the car was holding a police badge, #89, in his left hand. The microphone to the radio was off to the side of his right hand. The Berkeley officer called for assistance and stood by the policeman, who he now knew to be Inspector John R. Johnston of the Oakland Police Department.

Johnston died while enroute to the hospital. He had been shot four times in the chest with a .45 caliber handgun. Reconstruction of the shooting offered the theory that Johnston was in the area looking for burglars. Apparently, he stopped an individual and called him over to the police vehicle. The subject approached the passenger side of the car and leaned his forehead against the top of the door. Then the subject shot Johnston and fled the area.

Johnston’s murderer was arrested within 48 hours, tried, and convicted.

Johnston joined the department in July 1928. He had been an inspector for three years prior to his death. He was survived by his wife and two children.

Officer Loren C. Roosevelt was on San Feliz Boulevard enroute to his home in Glendale when he observed a man behaving suspiciously and called him over to his patrol car. The suspect complied, but suddenly pulled a revolver and shot the patrolman nine times at close range. Although mortally wounded, Roosevelt gave investigating officers a detailed description of the gunman before he died. He had been a patrolman since 1943.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Fred Guiol was assigned to the Mens’ Central Jail at the time of his murder. Sgt. Guiol’s family had suffered through a tragedy in 1945 when his wife and one of his children were killed in a train vs. auto collision. Less than a year later, tragedy struck again. Sgt. Guiol was off-duty, sitting in his car outside a home when a young man brandished a pistol and demanded money. Sgt. Guiol tried to dissuade the youth, to no avail. He produced some change from his pocket, angering the robber who demanded his wallet. The gunman then opened fire and ran away.