The life of Los Angeles Police Department Detective Edward S. Kislo was dedicated to two responsibilities: “One of them was his 12-year old son Nicholas, the other was his police department.”

Kislo, 50, was shot and killed in the line-of-duty on August 23, 1992, while responding to a neighbor’s call for help.

On Saturday, Aug. 22, at 11:45 p.m., Fredricka Haymaker heard noises coming from her backyard. She saw a silhouette coming over her fence into her yard. She telephoned her neighbor, Det. Kislo, who was off duty and at home.

Kislo went to Haymaker’s residence and was directed to the backyard by Fred Lyon, Haymaker’s father. As Kislo was searching for the prowler, Lyon heard Kislo state, “Show yourself.”

Kislo was starting to point his 9mm automatic toward some shrubbery, when Lyon saw a flash of fire and heard a loud bang coming from the shrubbery.

Kislo fell to the ground. He was transported to the Brothman Hospital where he was treated for a gunshot wound to his right neck area. He was pronounced dead at 1:30 a.m.

There are no suspects in the murder of the 18-year LAPD veteran.

Pastor Mark G. Lemenes and Father Mike McCullough, department chaplain, presented Kislo’s eulogy at the El Dorado Park Community Church which was filled leaving many officers standing outside.

Approximately 600 law enforcement personnel from Los Angeles and surrounding areas attended the funeral services.

The Kislo’s hearse was proceeded to the Forest Lawn Cypress Cemetery by a unit of horses, one of which was riderless.

The pall bearers included officers Jeff Churchill, John Rodriquez, Mike Schweer, Ray Mauss, Mike Hrehor, Larry Molinar, and civilian Jeff Williams.

Sgt. Randy Guan led the Honor Guard which conducted the formal flag presentation.

Officer Terese Churchill remembered Kislo as the “type of person who’d give you the shirt off his back. One who would always be the first to volunteer to stay late so his coworkers could leave. He was a great friend along with being a good coworker.”

Kislo, a Navy veteran, had been a member of the Detective Headquarters Division on PM Watch for the past two years. He was assigned to the K-Car and investigated natural deaths.

Detective Kislo is survived by his son Nicholas, mother Rose Kislo of Massachusetts, and sister Carolyn Zielinski of Florida.

It was a day Dinuba Police Chief Ed Hernandez hoped he would never have to face. A day when one of his officers, who died in the line-of-duty, was to be buried.

“As police chief this is one of the things that’s in the back of my mind that I hoped I’d never have to do,” said Hernandez in his eulogy of Dinuba Reserve Police Officer Ron Hills.

Officer Hills died while on duty August 5, 1992. He was rushing to help another officer attempt to capture three fleeing thieves when his patrol car crashed into a power pole. The three thieves had taken a couple of packs of beer from a local market.

Hills, 35, was the first Dinuba officer to die in the line-of-duty in the history of the department.

Hills, a two-year veteran of the Dinuba force, was working as a level-one reserve officer for the department, doing the job of a regular sworn officer at the time of his death.

Hernandez remembered Hills for his hard work, his positive image in the community as a police officer, and his taking the time to care.

Hernandez noted that one thing that stood out about Officer Hills was that people liked him, projecting what Hernandez likes to see in his officers, a positive image of taking the time to talk with people and caring for them.

Hernandez said that he had been at the Dinuba Burger King following Hill’s death when he noticed that all the employees were wearing black ribbons on their uniforms. When Hernandez questioned one employee about why they were wearing the ribbons, he answered, “Because we cared for Ron Hills, he took the time; we’ll always remember that Ron took the time.”

Hernandez said the Burger King workers had also put up two signs that read, “Enthusiasm and professionalism marked his watch; now with his Maker, he carries on – in memory of Officer Ron Hills.”

Before Chief Hernandez spoke, the Rev. Paul Wilson of the First Baptist Church of Farmersville remembered Hills as a husband and a father. “Ron left a legacy behind, folks; Ron will be missed.” Wilson stated, “Today we’ve gathered together as a community and as fellow officers to remember, as well as the family, the memory of Ronald Hills. His dedication to his family and his dedication to the community since he was one of our public servants.

“As a grateful community we want to say thank you to Ron for the many years of faithful service to us and yet at the same time we have to say that no greater love has a man than he’ll lay down his life for his community.”

Officer Hills was born in Toledo, Ohio. He later attended schools in Omaha, Nebraska. He moved to Farmersville in 1986. On Sept. 12, 1991, he married Mary Lawrence in Exeter.

Officer Hills was a criminology major at College of the Sequoias. He had worked as a reserve officer for the City of Dinuba for the last two years. The last four months Hills was filling a regular shift slot with the police department.

He was active with the Dinuba Police Explorer Scouts.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Hills of Farmersville; a stepson and step-daughter, and four step-grandchildren.

“Enthusiasm and professionalism marked his watch; now with his Maker, he carries on – in memory of Officer Ron Hills.”

A California Highway Patrol officer who was shot to death July 23, 1992 after a freeway confrontation was eulogized July 28 as a man whose “kindness and gentle spirit will be remembered by everybody who came in contact with him.”

Fidel Aleman, 33, of Whittier was shot in the chest after he stepped out of his car to confront the driver of a pickup truck who had cut him off on the freeway a few miles earlier.

In his eulogy, Raul Duran, a fellow officer and longtime friend, described Aleman as a quiet and reserved cop who distinguished himself by excelling in officer safety. He loved his job, and his fellow officers loved him.

CHP Commissioner M. J. Hannigan, one of several high ranking officials at Aleman’s funeral at Grace Chapel in Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary, said after the services that Aleman’s murder was just a senseless act.

Hannigan said Aleman “stood with the few who have the strength and tenacity to hold the line against those who would destroy our society.”

Mourners packed the small, hilltop chapel. About 600 officers from law enforcement agencies throughout the state stood at attention outside, listening to the services over outdoor speakers, some fought back tears.

Aleman was shot as he drove to work at the Central Los Angeles CHP station with his fiancee, Gretchen Jacobs, who is also a CHP officer, detectives said. On the Pomona Freeway, he flashed his headlights at the driver of a speeding pickup who had cut him off.

The pickup truck driver tailed the officer, at times with his high beam headlights on, to the Santa Monica Freeway’s Pico Boulevard off-ramp. After leaving the freeway, Aleman stopped his car on Pico and stepped out. The pickup pulled up alongside, the driver pointed a shotgun through the passenger window and opened fire.

Aleman’s fiancee rushed him to the California Medical Center – Los Angeles, where he died of a gunshot wound to the chest a short time later, detectives said.

“It started out with kind of a simple confrontation on the freeway and wound up with this poor young man being shot to death on the side of the road,” CHP Southern Division Chief Edward Gomez said after the services. He appealed to the public for help in capturing Aleman’s killer.

“Someone saw what happened that night,” he said. “I know it. They need to come forward and help us.”

CHP Officer Anthony Gubler walked from the chapel after the services in dark glasses, shaken by the loss. Gubler said he and Aleman were classmates at the CHP Academy in 1984.

“Fidel was an inspiration to everyone,” he said. “Even back then he took the job seriously. He kept everyone together. If we were slipping, he would pull us up, encourage us. We were just young kids and didn’t know anything. We didn’t even know how to march, he had been in the Marines, and he taught us.”

Entering the California Highway Patrol Academy in June 1984, he completed his training and was assigned to the Central Los Angeles Area. Recognizing Aleman’s knowledge of the department’s goals and objectives, his supervisors assigned him numerous duties including: field training officer, physical methods of arrest instructor; impaired driver task force member; and protective services detail member.

These duties enabled him to impart his wisdom to younger officers and to sharpen the skills of veteran officers. He served all seven years of his CHP career in the Central Los Angeles station.

Aleman was divorced and the father of two girls, Jessica, 6, and Jasmine, 3. He is also survived by his fiancee, parents, Erasmo and Zoraida Aleman, two older brothers, Rick Cerezo and Frank Aleman, and two younger sisters, Margaret Smith and Nelly Carlise.

Maywood buried its first slain police officer June 4, 1992, in an intensely personal ceremony befitting its 34-member police force and the affable, small-town ways of Officer John A. Hoglund.

The funeral – attended by hundreds of friends, relatives, and uniformed officers – also became a statement of police solidarity as the mourners in Downey’s Calvary Chapel were reminded of the politically tense and often hostile times in which Hoglund was killed.

“This year has not been unmarked by tragedy and today, we in law enforcement bond together as one large family,” said former Maywood officer Steve Nagy, one of two friends who eulogized Hoglund as a devoted patrolman and practical joker with a dry sense of humor.

“Don’t allow society to divide us,” Nagy pleaded in his eulogy, as dignitaries such as Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Sheriff Sherman Block and District Attorney Ira Reiner looked on.

Hoglund, 47, was fatally shot May 29, 1992 when he responded to a silent alarm and encountered five armed robbers fleeing a neighborhood market. He had been riding alone – as patrol officers typically do in the small city seven miles south of downtown Los Angeles – and had no chance to draw his gun.

A 16-year police veteran who left accounting because he loved the streets more than numbers, Hoglund is the first officer shot to death in the line-of-duty in the Maywood Police Department’s 68-year history.

Three men have been charged with murder and robbery in Hoglund’s death and were being held without bail while sheriff’s deputies hunt for two more suspects.

Even in deceptively safe Maywood, Hoglund was aware of his job’s risks but still found the work irresistible, a friend and co-worker told mourners.

“There’s a love only a police officer can experience and savor – the love he has for the streets,” said Sgt. Ed Robison, his voice breaking. “This lover can be cruel and harsh. She will knock you down, beat you up, and make you come back to it day-after-day.”

“Last Friday, John Hoglund put on his badge and his gun and went out to meet his lover for the last time.”

But Robison and Nagy drew laughter as well as tears as they recalled the antics of the officer nicknamed Hogie. At times, Hoglund’s mother, three daughters and fiancee smiled and nodded as they sat together, holding hands.

A tireless worker who wrote so many traffic tickets that he was called Maywood’s secret weapon, Hoglund once chased three armed bandits down the Long Beach Freeway at such a rapid speed that he left Robison and other officers far behind. Then he got on his car radio and quipped, “It sure is getting lonely out here.”

“That was Hogie – cool and calm in the face of crisis,” Robison said. “If there’s any consolation to this tragedy it is knowing that Hogie died doing what he loved to do… He was a good cop.”

Nagy recalled a time when Hoglund’s co-workers paid him back for a practical joke by sewing shut his uniform’s pant legs and sleeves and then watching as he struggled to get dressed to rush off to a prearranged “emergency call.”

Though Hoglund’s funeral drew 2,500 mourners and bore the trappings of a formal police burial – solemn officers from around the state, police badges covered by black bands, a 500-vehicle procession – it was also marked by home-spun simplicity.

“I didn’t want to make this speech and still don’t,” said Ted Heidke, Maywood’s police chief. “This has been a very difficult time at Maywood,” he said. “We’re a very small department. We’re all really, truly a family.”

When Heidke presented Hoglund’s mother, Dorothy, with the flag that draped his coffin, she touched the chief’s cheek. Hoglund is also survived by his three daughters, Jeanette, 27; Deana, 22; and Laura, 19; and his fiancee, Theresa French, of Azusa.

Narcotics investigator Richard B. Hammack, who was gunned down by an alleged drug dealer May 11, 1992, was the first Antelope Valley deputy to be shot and killed in the line-of-duty since Constable Gordon H. Glidden in 1920.

Friends said Hammack, a 7 1/2-year veteran of the department, was a longtime Antelope Valley resident, a former semipro hockey player, an avid weight lifter, and a motorcycle enthusiast.

Above all, they said, Hammack was a deputy who loved his job.

“He was described to me as a policeman’s policeman – that’s the highest compliment you can give,” said Capt. Tony Welch, commander of the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station.

Hammack, 31, of Lancaster, was killed by three bullets in a gun battle that erupted as deputies tried to serve a search warrant to a suspected drug dealer, John White, in a mobile home park.

Reports of the shooting indicated that White may have fired his rifle through the mobile home’s walls, driving two deputies from the residence. White was later killed by deputies returning fire. All of the bullets that struck Hammack during the raid were determined to have been fired from the rifle of the suspect.

Hammack, who was not assigned to enter the house and was not wearing a bulletproof vest, was said by witnesses to have entered the mobile home when he heard gunshots.

Virtually all law enforcement officers are issued lifesaving bullet-proof vests and encouraged to wear them. But often that is not enough, as in the case of Hammack, who was fatally shot in the face.

Murder charges against Dell Nickos, White’s common-law wife, were dropped by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. She still faces felony charges related to the shootings and an amount of methamphetamine found in her mobile home.

Friends said Hammack had plans to marry his girlfriend, Tammy Zeiner. The wedding was to take place in June.

Hammack was born in Bakersfield and moved to the Antelope Valley when he was 7. He attended Quartz Hill High School. He worked hauling alfalfa for one of the area farms, but left the valley while still in his teens to play semipro hockey in the East, Deputy Chris Haymond said.

Hammack joined the Sheriff’s Department in 1984. His career included stints as a jailer in the Antelope Valley, a patrol deputy at Lynwood station, and as a detective with the fugitive detail in Los Angeles, before returning to the valley about two years ago.

He worked as a patrol deputy and then spent eight months on the gang detail before moving over to the Palmdale narcotics squad two months ago.

“He, like the rest of us, wanted to get the people that prey on society off the streets,” Haymond said.

Sgt. Greg Collins, who heads the valley gang detail, said Hammack was a motorcycle enthusiast who had a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was kept in impeccable shape. He became an expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs.

“He projected an aura of respect to those he talked with,” Collins said. “He would walk up to store owners and shake their hands and let them know we were there.”

Deputies remembered Hammack as being so enthusiastic about his career that he would volunteer for seminars and ride-alongs during his off time.

“He truly loved to be a deputy sheriff,” Sgt. Bobby Denham said. “When he was a jailer he used to ride with me on his own time to learn more about being a patrol deputy. He wanted to get out on the streets and be a cop.”

Hammack is survived by his fiancée, Tammy L. Zeiner; son, Richard; father, Richard Hammack of Quartz Hill; mother, Bonnie Hammack of Bakersfield; and three sisters, Lori Banks, Jennifer Hammack, and Julianne Johnson, all of Bakersfield.

Marina Dept. of Public Safety officers wore black ribbons across their badges to mourn the death of Kolone Kolone Jr., a 42-year-old officer who collapsed and died April 20, 1992 while chasing a man wanted on drug warrants.

Kolone’s death was caused by a heart attack, according to an autopsy. Police Commander Bill Pierpoint said the autopsy results showed that Kolone didn’t have heart disease, but that there was partial blockage of his heart vessels. “His heart failed under the stress of running,” Pierpoint said.

Kolone had been assisting in the chase of Ronald Wayne Carr, 32, of Marina when he collapsed. Carr had a history of resisting arrest in encounters with Marina police.

Two paramedics who were conducting a training class nearby responded to the call for assistance. Efforts to revive the fallen officer by cardiopulmonary resuscitation failed, and Kolone died at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.

Carr was eventually captured by another Marina officer and was booked into County Jail on suspicion of murder in connection with Kolone’s death while he was resisting arrest. The charges were dropped because of insufficient evidence.

Kolone, a native of American Samoa, was a 22-year Army veteran who had retired earlier this year as a first sergeant. He had served with the Headquarters Company of the First Battalion, 9th Infantry at Ford Ord.

A resident of Marina for several years, Kolone had began volunteer reserve duty with the Marina police force in November. He became a paid reserve officer on April 1 although he had not yet graduated from a police academy. At the time of the chase, he was being trained by Senior Officer Kenneth Bartlett.

“We’re going to miss this man. We had hopes of this man being a fine addition to our department,” Pierpoint said, noting that Kolone had already helped on several occasions in working with Marina’s Samoan residents and communicating with them in Samoan.

“It’s tragic, whether an officer dies from a bullet from an offender or collapses in a chase,” Pierpoint said.

A resident of Marina since 1985, Kolone was active at St. Jude’s Catholic church and was going to become a lay reader this year, Pierpoint said. He was a graduate of Golden Gate University with a bachelor’s degree in police science.

Among his numerous service medals are the Bronze Service medal, the Army Good Conduct medal (seventh award), the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry Unit Citation with Palm, the Army Achievement and Army Commendation medals, both with first Oak Leaf Cluster, three Professional Development ribbons, and the Vietnam Service Medal with 30 Oak Leaf Clusters.

He was a member of the Marina Peace Officers Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 811 in Marina, and Menehune Golf Club at Fort Ord.

He is survived by his wife, Tomato, and two children, Connie, 14, and Jason, 11, parents, Kolone and Tauvale Kolone of American Samoa; his grandmother, Leuiga Ua of Long Beach; and five brothers and three sisters.

A trust fund for the education of Kolone’s children has been established at: Coast Federal Bank, 264 Reservation Road, Marina.

Southern California’s law enforcement community, feeling battered and bitter, gave an extraordinary tribute to one of its own April 7, 1992, as nearly 4,000 uniformed officers saluted the copper coffin of slain Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Nelson H. Yamamoto.

It was a day of solidarity and pride, a time for officers to take stock of their lives and mission as they gathered with family members and friends for the funeral services for the 26-year-old deputy.

Deputy Yamamoto died March 31, 1992 of complications related to four gunshot wounds he received in a brief firefight that ensued while investigating a disturbance call in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County of Walnut Park on March 29. He was the first deputy slain in the line-of-duty since 1989.

The Gardena resident was in his second month of a six-month mandatory training period at the Firestone substation where he had been assigned since Jan. 30.

“He (Yamamoto) had a great rapport with everybody here,” said Lt. Jim Taylor, one of the watch commanders at the Firestone substation. “He was a trainee so he spent a lot of time studying and learning.”

Taylor explained that the officers at the substation expressed a great deal of frustration and confusion after hearing about Yamamoto’s death.

Yamamoto graduated from the Sheriff’s Training Academy on May 26, 1989 and was assigned to the Hall of Justice jail where he worked for two-and-a-half years before being transferred to the Firestone substation. During his stint at the jail, he worked three months at the Inmate Reception Center.

A graduate from North Torrance High School, Yamamoto attended El Camino College and later went to the California State University, Dominguez Hills, before entering the sheriff’s academy.

The incident which ended Yamamoto’s life took place at about 8:10 p.m. March 29, 1992, when he and two other deputies went to investigate a complaint that two men with guns had threatened a neighbor.

After being directed to a garage that was converted to a residence, deputies peered into one of the windows and observed at least two armed male Hispanics.

One of the two suspects suddenly exited the house and repeatedly fired a handgun at deputies, thereby wounding Yamamoto. The suspect continued to run down the driveway toward the street and out of sight, Deputy Gabe Ramirez of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau said.

A third suspect was shot and killed by deputies at the scene.

According to a report, Yamamoto managed to empty all 16 rounds from his 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun. Yamamoto suffered wounds in his abdomen, shoulder, leg, and foot by bullets fired from a .357 magnum.

Yamamoto’s alleged killer, Cesar Uriel Mazariego-Molina, was shot and killed April 6, by police troopers in upstate New York after he repeatedly ignored their commands and attempted to run over them.

Yamamoto, who lived with his parents in Torrance, was remembered as a modest, dedicated, athletic young man who had recently announced his intention to marry his high school sweetheart, Michele Tomei.

The youngest of three children born to Henry and Jane Yamamoto, he had grown up studying martial arts, playing Little League baseball, and attending a Baptist Sunday school.

“We will miss Nelson – a personable, quiet, sensitive, hard-working, dedicated, meticulous human being with a lot of heart,” Sheriff Sherman Block said. “Truly a good cop. Truly a hero.”

An estimated 200 law enforcement vehicles with headlights shining in the rain formed a procession along Highway 299 from Burney to Fall River Mills for the funeral services of Shasta County Deputy Kenn Perrigo who was shot to death on Oct. 21, 1991.

Earlier that morning President George Bush telephoned Perrigo’s wife Debra to express his condolences.

The intermountain area, Including those in the Mexican community, breathed a sigh of relief as word spread that the two men suspected of killing Deputy Perrigo had been captured. The suspects were apprehended without incident bringing a close to a five-day manhunt, deemed the largest and longest in Shasta County’s history.

The suspects, Tomas Cruz and Carlos Estrada, were arrested by Deputy Perrigo for being intoxicated in public. They allegedly shot him in the back of the head and neck several times with his own 9 mm Smith and Wesson as he transported them to a Redding jail.

The two Mexican farm laborers took off on foot from the patrol car that crashed a short distance from the seven-mile dirt road into Goose Valley.

Authorities have not indicated who did the shooting and who was able to reach under the patrol car’s dividing metal cage to take Perrigo’s pack containing his gun from the front seat.

Perrigo first worked for the department in Redding as a civilian cook. Lt. Herb Davidson said he was hired by the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department in 1983 and worked in the jail until he was assigned to patrol in Burney in 1986. He was a member of the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

“He was a dedicated, conscientious employee, who just wanted to serve his community,” said fellow Burney Deputy Jacque Booker. “He loved living here. What can I say. I worked with him day in and day out. He just wanted to do a good Job.”

Perrigo, a deputy for nine years, is the fifth Shasta County Sheriff’s deputy to be killed in the line of duty and the second to lose his life in the past 10 years, according to department records.

He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Fall River Mills and Shasta County Peace Officers Association, and was Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 216 in Fall River Mills. He was a U.S. Coast Guard veteran.

In addition to his wife, Perrigo is survived by his daughters Kady, 11, and Kala, 7, and two-year-old son Jared; parents Kenneth (a retired CHP officer) and Eileen of Redding; brother Mark of Waldport, Ore.; and sister Lisa Knox of Red Bluff.

More than 800 officers gathered in Fairfield to honor a man described as having a deep love for growing things and who gave his life trying to save others.

Representatives of law enforcement agencies throughout the San Francisco Bay Area congregated at the Holy Spirit Church for services for Fairfield resident and Oakland police officer John Grubensky.

Grubensky, 32, died Oct. 20, 1991, trying to save five Oakland hills residents from the fire storm that swept through the area. All died in their efforts to find safety.

“I was not surprised,” said Oakland police officer Wendy Rae after the service when describing her former partner’s actions. “It was something he would do. He would help anyone. He took care of me and he took care of his family.”

More than 200 officers filled half the pews inside the church while friends and family filled the rest. Outside, officers from Los Banos to Mendocino County stood in ranks more than 50 across and 10 deep.

Respectful silence outside the church was punctuated only by the sigh of the breeze-blown trees and the crackled commands from patrol car scanners. More than 100 police motorcycles filled the street outside. Overhead, helicopters flew by in a “missing man” formation.

Oakland police Capt. Steven Jensen said this was the second time Holy Spirit Church has held services for an Oakland police officer killed in the line-of-duty.

Grubensky, a father of three, was described as a man with “a disarming sense of humor,” a love of nature, a passion for gardening, diving and the outdoors, and a great devotion to his family.

Grubensky took no unnecessary risks in his dangerous profession, but was willing to put his life on the line to save others, fellow officers said.

“He had an extremely level-headed courage,” Jensen said. “He did not shrink from danger.”

Another officer, who attended the Oakland police academy with Grubensky, described him as a careful man.

“He weighed this out,” the officer said. “There was a chance to die, but he thought ‘I am their last hope.’ It was only a freak accident that he’s not here today.”

Grubensky risked his life during the Oct. 17, 1989, earthquake that collapsed the Cypress overpass. He crawled through the freeway’s unstable rubble looking for victims pinned in their cars.

Grubensky volunteered for duty on Oct. 20, 1991 to pull an extra shift so he could pay for some projects he planned around the house, Jensen said during his eulogy.
The Oakland officer’s patrol car was trapped in the 6800 block of Charing Cross Road when several cars tumbled onto the roadway from a canyon road above, officers said.

“The charred hills will be green again,” Jensen said. “The animals will return. The houses will be rebuilt. The families will return. And among the families will be those who know they owe their lives to Officer John Grubensky.”

As each officer finished sharing their memories of the widely respected officer, they walked to widow Linda Grubensky, giving her a hug or a kiss and leaving a red rose in her lap.

More than 1,800 fellow law enforcement officers from San Diego and around the nation came to hear a fallen colleague eulogized as a caring police officer whose boyish looks belied his determination and dedication to his job.

San Diego Police Officer Ronald Wayne Davis, 24, also was a devoted family man and friend, the mourners at First United Methodist Church in Mission Valley were told.

“I remember looking at him, and I looked at this boyish face, and I said, ‘Nobody checked his ID. You’ve got to be 21 to be a cop, because he looked so young,” said Davis’ sergeant at the Police Academy, Frank Bucheit, recalling his first meeting with Davis.

“Well, I’ll tell you folks, he may have looked young and boyish, but, man, what a person he was.” “Ron Davis was a great spouse. Ron Davis was a great father. Ron Davis was a great friend. And he was a good cop,” Bucheit told the more than 2,000 mourners, including Davis’ widow, Wendy, and his sons, Matt and Luke.

The funeral service led Police Chief Bob Burgreen to question the need for guns in American society. Davis, the youngest of three sons of an Oregon family, was shot to death Sep. 17, 1991, while responding to a domestic dispute in Southeast San Diego.

Officer Davis and his partner observed a subject fitting the description of the suspect of the domestic violence incident in a vehicle in the parking lot of the residence. Officer Davis exited his vehicle in an attempt to contact the subject. The subject exited his vehicle and aimed a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun at officer Davis from over the top of his vehicle. The subject fired at least five shots at Officer Davis, fatally wounding him in his upper torso.

Officer Davis’ partner returned the suspect’s fire; however, the suspect fled on foot. He remained at large for several hours before being found hiding behind a vehicle in the vicinity of the crime scene. Upon being discovered, the suspect fired one round to his head, committing suicide.

The gunman, Arnaldo Devilla Castillo, 30, a former hospital housekeeping aide, killed himself after an 11-hour manhunt at the apartment complex where the shooting took place.

In his eulogy, Bucheit said Davis “was a helper to us all, and he was a competitor. He wanted to win at all costs.” “He cared. He genuinely cared about the people that he worked with, and he cared about the people that he served in the community,” Bucheit said.

Davis has been praised by both fellow officers and residents for his role in cleaning up an apartment complex under a long-established police program called “problem-oriented policing.” He was slain at the same complex.

In an interview after the funeral, Wendy Davis said her husband and childhood sweetheart, loved his job.” “He was an officer. He was there for the people, and I think they knew that,” she told a reporter.

Also after the service, Chief Burgreen said Ron Davis “didn’t have a chance” in the incident. “There are some times when you never have a chance, and this is such a case,” the police chief said. “He stepped out of that car, and he’s not even out, and he gets shot by a man that he didn’t even know was armed.”

Burgreen went on to warn that “we have to get a handle on the guns” in the city. “I just have a generally bad feeling about the proliferation of guns, and the fact that almost anyone can get a gun at any time,” Burgreen said. “Not only can they, they are, and they are using them on innocent people. And police officers are just trying to do their jobs, and it makes me sick.

“As a society, we have to start asking ourselves, ‘What are we doing with all those guns out there, and do we really need them?”‘

Davis was born in Oregon and attended schools there. He later joined the Marines, went through the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and was stationed at Camp Pendleton.

He was married and had two sons, one 4 and the other 18 months.

Davis graduated from the police academy in April 1990 and was presented the Hartless Spirit Award at the ceremony. Created by Shawn Dee Hartless, the award is based on four criteria, according to academy officials: leadership, inspiration, commitment, and “the unselfish desire to help others.” The winner receives an engraved flashlight.

Davis’ death ended a string of almost four years in which no San Diego police officer was killed in the line of duty. In the 1980s, when seven officers died.