A San Jose motorcycle police officer was killed September 8 when he and his bike slid into a car although skid and gouge marks showed he stomped on the brakes in a desperate effort to avoid the collision.

Robert L. Wirht, 44, an instructor for the motorcycle safety foundation who spent nearly half his police career enforcing traffic laws on his cycle, was flipped through the air at least twice after hitting the left front door of a blue Mustang where the door and the front fender meet, according to Sgt. Charles Blackmore.

Police said the Mustang was driven by Gina Ann Martinez of San Jose, an Evergreen Valley College student who just had celebrated her 20th birthday.

Wirht, a 15-year veteran of the department, was working on radar enforcement trying to stop a white vehicle that was speeding when the Mustang veered into the lane in front of him, police said.

The white car did not stop when the police cycle and the Mustang collided. Wirht was pronounced dead on arrival at San Jose Medical Center; it appeared he died of head trauma.

Blackmore said Wirht might have struck his head on the strobe lights on the rear of his motorcycle as he was tossed from the 800-pound bike.

The accident remains under investigation. But from initial reports, Blackmore said Wirht was in the northbound fast lane of the road accelerating as he tried to catch the white car he had determined was speeding from his hand held radar gun.

Moments before, Officer Tom Harris, another motorcycle officer on radar duty with Wirht, had pulled over a car driven by Esther Togiai, 20, an Evergreen nursing student.

After the accident, Togiai slipped out of her seat belt and ran to the side of Wirht and attempted to give the officer CPR.

“But she told us she was unable to detect a pulse,” Blackmore said. When Togiai first was stopped at the right side of the road, a car coming up in the slow lane cut its speed, Blackmore said Melinda Wilson, 32, of San Jose told police she slowed because she was concerned about safely passing the stopped car.

As she slowed, Wilson noticed in her rearview mirror that a blue Mustang was coming up behind her and she braced herself to be hit, Blackmore said.

Instead, Wilson told officers, the Mustang skidded left into the fast lane and she heard tires squeal and a crash.

According to Blackmore, Martinez told officers at the scene that she began to slow down when the car in front of her did.

“But she misjudged the speed of the car ahead and had to brake harder,” Blackmore said. “She thought she was going to hit the other car and swerved to the left. She lost control and skidded toward the dirt medium strip. It happened so fast she said she heard the crash and saw the motorcycle at the same time.”

Martinez was taken to police headquarters after the accident and police drew a blood sample from her although Blackmore made it clear there was no indication the young woman had been drinking. She had just left her night classes at nearby Evergreen as had Togiai, he said. Martinez later was driven home by officers.

Capt. William Lansdowne said this is the only on-duty death of a motorcycle officer in the department he can recall, although there have been a number of motorcycle officers injured. Police officers generally consider riding a motorcycle to be one of the most dangerous assignments.

A year ago, police said, Wirht was involved in another on-duty accident when a car went through a stop sign and hit his motorcycle broadside. The officer suffered facial injuries in that crash.

A Vietnam veteran, Wirht was active in the Marine Reserves in which he held the rank of chief warrant officer. He joined the police department in 1973. He has been a field training officer, and worked in personnel and patrol before being assigned to traffic enforcement in 1981.

A teacher in the police programs in both the Gavilan and San Jose Community College districts, Wirht also worked with recruits at the police academy, where he was a tactical officer.

Last December he underwent a successful heart bypass operation.

Wirht is survived by his wife and three children – girls aged 2 ½ and 4, and a boy, 17.

Prior to joining San Jose Police Department, Bob spent a few years as a deputy at the San Clara County Sheriff’s Office and a short hitch as a Fremont P.D. officer. He was appointed as a San Jose police officer on Jan. 22, 1973.

“In the Line of Duty, I hear them say”

The line above is excerpted from a very poignant and moving poem entitled “The Monument”. Its author is Sergeant George Hahn, LAPD ret. It was on September 12, 1988 when Brian Pratt, brother of LAPD Officer Danny Pratt recited that poem at the funeral service for Danny Pratt, a brave Los Angeles police officer who was murdered by gang members during a drive-by shooting on September 3, 1988. What follows are some reflections on Dan’s life and career.

Officer Daniel A. Pratt was born and raised in Youngstown Ohio. He had a love for working with wood, and as a teenager, became a carpenter by trade.

In 1977 he joined the United States Marine Corps, serving most of his enlistment at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Ca. While there he was a sergeant in the air wing, working as a helicopter mechanic. At the time of his death, he was a sergeant in the Marine Reserves, stationed out of Camp Pendleton.

In 1982 he joined the Los Angeles Police Department. While in the academy he made friends and established relationships that would follow him throughout his career in the department. He served his probationary period at Hollenbeck Division. Dan wanted a little more excitement, so he transferred to 77th Street Division in the heart of South Los Angeles. He quickly became a favorite because of his energy and his work ethic. He always eager to try new things, and often was picked to work dangerous undercover assignments.

Dan worked the South Bureau Narcotics Task Force, and he was promoted to Police Officer III, a training officer. All of a sudden the trainee became the training officer in patrol. Because of his reputation as being a solid field training officer, Dan was given the “problem probationers”; those young officers on the verge of being fired for various deficiencies in their performance as cops. Almost always, through his mentorship, Officer Pratt would turn these cops around and in most cases turn them into good officers. He also worked the gang task force until June 1988 when he was hand picked to be the senior officer in the Robbery Apprehension Detail known then by its abbreviated name of “RAD”.

On the night of Sept. 3, 1988, Officer Pratt and his partner, Officer Veronica Delao Jenkins, were on an undercover stakeout at the Pine Liquor Store in South Los Angeles, when they heard what they thought were two shotgun blasts. They then heard rapid gunfire and within 5 seconds saw a car’s headlights. This was the car that had been involved minutes before, in a gang related drive-by shooting which left three people wounded. Pratt and his partner radioed their observations to communications and began their observation of the suspect’s vehicle.

A short chase ensued which ended up at Florence Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard. The officers wound up at a gas station and adjacent car wash where the officers parked their patrol car for cover. As Officer Pratt called for back up, and requested an “airship”, the suspects’ car made an abrupt u-turn, and was now bearing down on the two officers.

Officer Pratt saw this, and as gunfire erupted from the suspects’ AR-15 assault weapon and bullets began to strike their police car, Pratt returned fire. As he fired the last round from his 9 mm service revolver, he took a fatal round, dying instantly.

Officer Pratt was eulogized at his funeral, by his brother Brian, at the time an officer with the Upland, CA Police Department. He told the audience, “If I would live to be half the man and officer he was . . . he was unparalleled in his family and professional life. He was a good cop, a cop’s cop.”

The Chief of Police, Daryl F. Gates described Officer Pratt as being in the top one percent of personnel in the Los Angeles Police Department.

Officer Pratt was laid to rest Sept. 12, 1988, in a heroes’ funeral, with his family, many friends and officers whose lives he touched, at his side. He was just 30 years old.

He was survived by his pregnant wife, Andria; daughter, Amanda; sons, Danny Jr. and Nicholas; and unborn daughter, Heather, who was born on Feb. 7, 1989, five months after her daddy died. Also surviving him were his parents, Joyce and Roy Pratt Sr., four brothers, three sisters, and a host of other loved ones.

Officer Pratt’s brother, Brian, is presently a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department; and his brother-in-law (Andria’s brother), Jim Deaton, is a detective with the same department.

Raylene Brooks, 17 at the time of the incident, was the driver of the car that was used in Officer Pratt’s murder. She currently resides at the women’s prison in Chowchilla, CA. She had no prior record. She was tried as an adult and convicted of First Degree Murder of a Peace Officer. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Raylene Brooks will be able to request a parole hearing on October 17, 2007.

Kirkton Moore, then 27 years old, the shooter in this crime, had an extensive criminal history consisting of numerous arrests for robbery, ADW, drug sales, battery on a police officer, etc.

Moore had just been released from state prison and was out on parole when he murdered Officer Pratt. He was convicted of First Degree Murder of a Peace Officer and received two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Moore is currently in Folsom Prison.

Both suspects were on the run for a short time. They ultimately gave themselves up in Las Vegas, Nevada after surrendering to a local Los Angeles television news reporter after the case was profiled on America’s Most Wanted. Their arrest was captured on video.

Edward Clavell. Jr., a thirty-one-year-old Seal Beach Police Department Officer, was assigned to traffic enforcement patrol on the night of August 23, 1988. He was attempting to overtake a speeding vehicle when his Police Cruiser entered the intersection of Seal Beach Boulevard and Westminster Boulevard and collided with another car. Officer Clavell was the only fatality of the accident.

Officer James W. Bloesch of the San Francisco Police Department, was accidentally shot and killed at the police stables at Golden Gate Park by another officer who was examining his .357-caliber duty weapon.

Officer Bloesch had served with the agency for 17 years and had received a Silver Medal of Valor and two Bronze Medals of Valor. He was survived by his wife and three children, one of whom went on to also serve in law enforcement.

Forty-four days after he began the law enforcement career he had dreamed of, slain East Palo Alto Officer Joel Michael Davis was honored during an emotion-filled ceremony.

More than 1,500 officers and hundreds of friends and relatives bid farewell to Davis, celebrating his passion for helping young people and his desire to make the world he knew a better place.

In an impressive display of brotherhood for the slain rookie officer, a five-mile-long funeral procession of patrol cars, red lights flashing, silently wound its way through Palo Alto and Los Altos.

“The events that brought us here are a sad commentary on today’s society,” East Palo Alto police Chief Dan Nelson said at the memorial service at Stanford University. “He was the kind who could – and did – make a difference.”

A suspected crack cocaine user gunned Davis, 26, down June 22, after he chased the man through a darkened East Palo Alto neighborhood. Davis was off-duty at the time but offered to help fellow officers who were called to two emergencies simultaneously.

An exhaustive manhunt ended in the arrest of the man investigators believe pulled the trigger.

Davis, who graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1979, was the first officer to die in the line of duty in East Palo Alto and the first one to be killed in San Mateo County in seven years.

Twelve hours before he was fatally shot, he was playing ball with some boys from the San Mateo County Juvenile Probation Department. That was typical, his friends said – he had a knack for being where he was needed most.

In stark contrast to his last moments of life, Davis’ memorial service was held in the tranquil, tree-lined Frost Amphitheater at Stanford.

Hundreds of uniformed officers, including members of the class he graduated from at the police academy, lined up shoulder-to shoulder along the path leading to the amphitheater. As the copper, hardtop hearse crept up the walkway, the white-gloved officers snapped to attention and saluted.

In front of the stage was a portrait of Davis in uniform and a flowered wreath in the shape of a badge – No. 32.

The wooden casket, draped with an American flag, was hoisted from the hearse by eight pallbearers and placed in front of the stage. Seven of the pallbearers were police officers.

East Palo Alto Mayor John Bostic spoke first. He read a resolution from the City Council, urging people not to forget Davis and the price he paid for trying to make East Palo Alto a safer community. He called a knack for being where he was, Davis’ death a “profound loss.”

Davis easily could have worked as an officer in a city with kinder streets. But he chose to work in East Palo Alto, his friends said, because he knew the community needed top-notch police officers.

He truly believed he and his fellow officers could make a difference in East Palo Alto, his friend said.

“This is probably the hardest day of my 23-plus years in law enforcement,” Chief Nelson said.

Pausing several times, the chief credited the energetic Davis and Davis’ close friend, East Palo Alto Officer Tom Burns, with establishing the department’s crucial reserve force.

Davis, who worked full time in computers at Hewlett-Packard Co. until January, joined the East Palo Alto police reserves in 1986. Last year, he became the first reserve hired by the city to become a full-time officer. He was a standout at the police academy in San Jose, where he graduated May 10 in the top 10 percent of his class.

On May 15, he began a training program on the city’s streets that was to last eight weeks. “Ever since he was a little boy, being a policeman was all he ever talked about,” Davis’ uncle, Joe Alexander said.

The procession headed south on Interstate 280 to the Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Los Altos.

Two horse-mounted color guards stood at the entrance to the cemetery.

Only the precise crack of a 21-gun salute broke the silence as row upon row of officers stood motionless and grim-faced in front of the casket.

The East Palo Alto police ranks – including some of the officers who found their colleague bleeding that night – were in front.

Davis had been shot twice – once in the head – but had managed to make it 15 feet before slumping to a driveway. After a 7 1/2 -hour fight to live, he died in the arms of one of his closest friends.

“He showed us how to live by giving his life,” The Rev. Chuck Smith of the Church of the Nazarene in Palo Alto said, “Joel Davis believed in what he was doing . . . And what an example he has given us.”

After Smith spoke privately with the family for a few moments, three San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies folded up the American flag that draped Davis’ coffin and handed it to his mother.

On a nearby knoll, an officer played taps on a bugle.

Davis is survived by his parents, Beth and Joel Davis; a sister, Michele Davis Flagler; and his grandparents, Verlile and Vel Alexander of Washington.

Even as a little boy, Jimmy Beyea loved uniforms.

In nursery school, he marched around Northridge’s Pinecrest School in a toddler-sized khaki shirt and little red tie. Part of the campus color guard.

Later, he wore the white-and-brown of a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream dipper, the semiofficial togs of a pest exterminator and the real-thing fatigues of the Air National Guard.

But it wasn’t until last March, when James Clark Beyea graduated from the Police Academy and donned the starched blue of the Los Angeles Police Department, that the uniform really seemed to fit, family, and friends said.

“You could say he had found his niche in life,” a friend, Brian Koren, said. “You could say that’s what he was meant to do, to be a cop.”

If only for a few months.

Beyea’s career was cut short June 8 by a suspected burglar who wrestled the rookie’s revolver away from him. Beyea, 24, died in uniform on the street, a .38 caliber bullet through is head.

Beyea’s fellow officers killed one suspect in his slaying several hours later. Another suspect was in custody.

His mother, Cathleeen Beyea, worried that something like this might happen to the boy she named after her father, the late Los Angeles Police Dept. motorcycle Officer James Clark.

“It’s dangerous,” said Beyea, who raised her only child alone, on the salary of a Ralph’s cashier. “You think about it. But that’s what he wanted to do. He liked it a lot. He liked, you know, apprehending criminals.”

Like the naked woman who was running around a North Hollywood street one night. “He didn’t tell us about the bad ones,” said Beyea. Just the funny stuff.

He was clean-cut, protective, a guy who liked pepperoni pizzas, chocolate mint ice cream, and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. His picture in the 1981 edition of Grover T. Cleveland High School’s yearbook shows a serious young man with longish hair and stooped shoulders.

Although he was never a problem child, “he didn’t get discipline until he got to the National Guard,” his mother said. There, her son cut his hair and learned to salute smartly.

Beyea was deeply patriotic, his family said, a strong proponent of federal defense spending.

The walls of his Reseda apartment are decorated with model airplanes, swords from Okinawa, Japan and other military memorabilia. A Persian cat prowls inside, neighbors said.

“He was just a real gung-ho guy,” his mother said. “Very enthusiastic. All-American . . . We’re very proud of him.”

Every morning Beyea worked out at the Air National Guard base where he was still in the reserve. Every weekend, he went out with the girl next door whom he’d known since he was 12.

“He was very giving, ambitious and loving,” Cindy Lewis, the girlfriend, said. “He had a lot of friends.”
Many of his closest friends still work at the 146th Air National Guard Armory, where Jimmy stopped by sometimes to eat lunch with the old gang: two thick hamburgers with chili on top.

“Hell of a kid,” said Sgt. Mike Sexton. “He was an excellent worker. Outgoing. Very friendly . . . He doesn’t deserve something like this to happen to him.”

For Steve Timbol, a fellow guardsman, Jimmy’s death is “like losing a brother,” he said. “He was very kind-hearted.”

At the Police Academy, Beyea was one of four squad leaders in his class.

“He was an exemplary recruit,” said Officer Kent Carter, a drill instructor. “All his classmates looked up to him. He was my No. 1 squad leader. Just the kid you want to come to the academy. He portrayed the best that there is.”

He graduated in the top one-fourth of his class of 71, instructors said.

Within the department, Beyea’s goals were to make the anti-gang unit. Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, and the elite Metropolitan Division, instructors said.

“He stressed integrity, discipline, and loyalty,” added Officer Michael Diaz, his self-defense instructor. “He showed it all the way to the end.”

At police headquarters downtown, flags were already flying at half-mast in Beyea’s memory. Normally boisterous officers were somber and subdued.

“Everyone has to die, but it’s a shame when they have to die so young,” said Officer Bill Frio, a department spokesman.

Beyea’s colleagues at the North Hollywood Division were in shock. They said he was unusually aggressive – and impressive – for a probationer. “He was a real good policeman and would have made a great police officer,” said Officer Jeff Dunn. “It’s too bad he was cut down so short in his career. He would have been a good one.”

Cmdr. William Booth said Chief Daryl Gates regretted that he was out of town when one of his officers was killed. “He wanted to be here,” Booth said.

Beyea is the second North Hollywood officer to be killed in three years. Detective Thomas C. Williams, 42, was shot to death Oct. 31, 1985, in what authorities said was an effort to prevent him from testifying in a robbery case.

“The wounds from that case haven’t really healed,” Dinse said. “Now this on top of that . . .it doesn’t make this a very pleasant place to be.

Officers Leslie Macarro, 52, and Arthur “Smokey” Perez, Youth Training School Transportation Officers, transported three Youth Authority inmates to Los Angeles General Hospital on Friday, May 20, 1988.

While attempting to depart the hospital, a 19-year-old inmate, incarcerated for murder, bolted from the officers while in full restraint. Macarro immediately began a foot pursuit and was struck by a car driven by a civilian hospital employee. He died an hour later inside the hospital.

The escapee was immediately captured by Officer Perez.

Macarro was born on May 9, 1936, in San Bernardino. He was a 24-year resident of Colton. He was a member of the Temecula Band of Luiseno Mission Indians from Pechanga Reservation. His wife, Martha, is a native of Colton and an employee with the City of Colton, in the city clerk’s office. They have four children: Mark, Paul, John and Caroline.

Macarro graduated from San Bernardino High School in 1954. From 1954 to 1957, he served in the U.S. Army with the 1st Infantry Division, as a military policeman stationed in South Korea. In 1974, Macarro began working with Youth Training School in Chino. For two years, he worked as a landscape/groundsman. He attended San Bernardino Valley College to qualify for the Group Supervisor position, in which capacity he began in 1976.

In 1983, Macarro’s hard work was recognized when he was presented with a plaque “In appreciation for (his) most outstanding performance at the Youth Training School.”

Macarro enjoyed frequent weekend trips to San Diego with his wife and close friends. A former barber, Macarro considered barbering a creative outlet and was always happy to give his sons haircuts. He enjoyed fishing trips and movie classics – “Sgt. York” was his favorite. He is remembered as a very loving, patient and giving father, and strong in his Catholic faith. Macarro’s smile and dimples will be remembered by all his family, friends and colleagues.

A Monterey County deputy sheriff spent the last minutes of his life under a barrage of eggs, bottles and firecrackers hurled by a crowd of unruly campers who called him and fellow officers “Nazis,” police said.

Cpl. Robert J. Shaw, 31, the father of two girls, collapsed and died of a heart attack April 19 while facing a hostile mob of 300 to 400 people at Laguna Seca Raceway, police said. The United States Grand Prix Championships motorcycle races were conducted there over the weekend.

Police said the crowd continued to chant obscenities as two officers attempted to revive Shaw. The other deputies turned to face the crowd and formed a protective circle around their fallen colleague, said Capt. Roger Chaterton, commander of the sheriff’s patrol division.

Shaw appeared to stumble as he and about 40 other deputies, dressed in full riot gear, were attempting to restore order with “a show of force,” police said. The deputies were walking in formation during the third of a series of sweeps at a campground where campers had thrown bottles and firecrackers at smaller groups of police earlier in the evening. Those officers had been forced to retreat when the crowd interfered with arrests, police said.

Reports differ on whether the crowd blocked the ambulance that took Shaw to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where he was pronounced dead.

Chatterton contended the ambulance “was delayed by an antagonistic crowd that wouldn’t let it through.” He said the incident left him embittered and angry because “the people around us knew a man was down” but did not move out of the way.

But Brian Sinnott, president of Peninsula Medics, said his crew was escorted through the crowd by a wall of deputies who walked beside the ambulance. He added that although the crowd appeared hostile toward police, the ambulance crew reported no problems and arrived on the scene in two minutes.

Chatterton said Shaw’s family had a history of heart diseases and added the deputy was being treated for high blood pressure. He recently had received a physical and was cleared for duty.

Chatterton noted that police officers experience a great deal of stress in hostile crowd situations, where an officer’s instincts initially call for “fight or flight.”

“It’s not just stressful from the perspective of physical danger,” he said. “You can’t really be reacting. You have to exercise restraint . . . It’s a terrible thing to put your body through.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more traumatic in law enforcement than to lose someone in what amounts to combat situation,” he added.

County officials stressed that a majority of the estimated 50,000 people who attended the weekend races were well behaved.

County Supervisor Karin Strasser Kauffmann said she attended the races and observed a crowd she described as mellow, sophisticated and affluent.

She is holding a town meeting at Laguna Seca to discuss noise and traffic complaints, “I’m sure this will be added to the list,” she said.

Police said problems with vandalism and drunkenness arise when some racing fans camp overnight in the park.

Police have asked the county Parks and Recreation Department to limit the number of camping permits issued on racing weekends.

Chatterton said there has been a history of incidents at the camping area following motorcycle races.

Lt. John Crisan said that in previous years police were so outnumbered they could do little but watch as rowdy campers broke park rules, revved motorcycle engines and committed acts of vandalism.

“Up until now, we really haven’t had much enforcement. It’s been nothing but abuse in years past. Many times we went in there and had to retreat,” Crisan said.

This year, Crisan said, police decided to bring in a tactical squad of 30 to 40 deputies.

– San Jose Mercury News

Hundreds of peace officers from throughout the state stood silently on a hillside at a Whittier cemetery honoring the first Inglewood police officer to die in the line of duty in the city’s 80-year history.

Sgt. George Aguilar, 46, a 15-year Police Department veteran described as a crack undercover investigator and SWAT team member, was shot to death on a busy street March 31 as he pursued armed robbers.

An overflow crowd, including police from more than 30 communities as well as city and county officials, attended the morning funeral at St. John Chrysostrum Catholic Church at which Aguilar was eulogized by a colleague as “the most capable officer I have ever known in my 28 years of police service.”

Saying that the slain officer’s undercover skills were “chameleon-like,” Inglewood Lt. Harry Carter told how Aguilar had infiltrated and lived with a dangerous gang of robbers for two months and survived gunfire at point-blank range during a drug raid.

Noting that Aguilar died the day before Good Friday, shot when he stopped to help a robbery victim, Father Paul Montoya said the officer’s death showed that “He was willing to go forth and accept the possibility of sacrificing himself. Without men like him, we have no real society,” Montoya said.

Four suspects have been arrested and charged with murder in the case. The suspected gunman shot and killed himself after a high-speed chase the night of the crime.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Aguilar was “a child of the streets” raised in the Latino Boyle Heights area, Carter said. In Inglewood, the father of three served as a role model for groups of Latino school children he counseled, he said.

Inglewood leaders and residents said Aguilar’s death was particularly demoralizing to them because it came at a time when crime has been decreasing in the city.

The City Council declared an official day of mourning. Flags flew at half-staff and a trust fund was established for the officer’s 3-year-old son.

“Let’s hope it’s the first and the last officer to be killed,” said Mourner Muhammad Nasardeen, who said his Kiwanis club plans to set up a scholarship for Inglewood high school students in Aguilar’s name.

Outside the church, tears spilled from beneath the sunglasses of a white-gloved officer as the casket was loaded into a hearse.

The long motorcade made its way to Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, where a lone officer playing a bagpipe led the procession. Four police helicopters swooped overhead and a three-gun salute was fired in Aguilar’s honor.

A massive procession of police cars that moved slowly through San Diego was part of a last tribute to rookie officer Jerry Lee Hartless, who died January 31, from a bullet believed fired by a narcotics suspect nearly four weeks earlier.

More than 2,200 people, most of them fellow officers who came from as far away as Sacramento, turned out to mourn the 24-year-old officer who was described as “a thoroughbred.”

Packing the auditorium of the Horizon Christian Fellowship Church in Clairemont, they heard San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender eulogize the energetic, one-time high school track star whose life ended tragically after less than a year on the force.

The chief recalled Hartless’ police academy graduation last May, in which the young officer was honored as the most physically fit member of his class.

“When his name was announced, this brand new police officer jumped from his chair and sprinted to the stage. And I mean sprinted. I don’t know if anyone timed him, but there’s no question in my mind: Jerry Lee Hartless had broken another record.”

Hartless was on patrol late at night in a Southeast San Diego neighborhood known for drug trafficking when he and his patrol partner stopped to question a group of men.

The men scattered when the two officers got out of the car. Hartless and Officer Johan Schneider ran after one of them, but Hartless – with his superior foot speed – quickly outdistanced his partner. Police said Schneider heard a shot and found Hartless critically wounded in the head.

Hartless died 23 days later, after laying in a coma at UCSD Medical Center with a bullet lodged in his brain.

A suspect was arrested two hours after the shooting. He is Stacy Don Butler, 24, who had been released from prison 11 days before the shooting.

“Hartless,” Kolender said “was gunned down in a cold-blooded and cowardly murder.”

An estimated 1,500 uniformed officers, with badges taped in black, assembled in the parking lot of San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium and went in a motorcade to the Horizon Christian Fellowship Hall five miles away in Clairemont to join at least 700 other officers, friends and family members of the slain officer and his wife, Shawn Dee.

Hartless is the 11th San Diego police officer in 11 years to be killed in the line of duty. He is also the second lawman to be slain in the last few months in this county. Sheriff’s Deputy Lonnie Gene Brewer, 29, was killed Dec. 5 when he and fellow officers stormed an Escondido apartment.

Hartless was raised in Hillsdale, Mich., where he set high school middle-distance and long-jump records. His father, Clyde Hartless of Tucson, Ariz., was a career Marine, and Hartless joined the Marine Corps after graduation.

Hartless married Shawn Dee, whom he met in high school, after he graduated from Marine Corps boot camp here. After serving a year in the Marines, he received a medical discharge because of an allergy and began working as a graphic artist.

Kolender said Hartless had a bright future in the graphic arts field, but was restless.

“He had a finely honed sense of right and wrong, and he wanted to act on his principles, to contribute to his community. Policing was his destiny,” Kolender said. He said Hartless took a sizable pay cut to join the force.

Hartless had two loves, Kolender said. One was police work and the other his wife.

“He was extremely proud of their relationship and he let people know it,” the chief said. He said they were planning to have a family and looking for a lot to build their own house.

Following the memorial services, a procession led by 600 police cars – their yellow, red and blue lights flashing – and 50 motorcycles wound its way slowly through Clairemont residential streets to Morena Boulevard, past Sea World, and through Ocean Beach and Point Loma to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, where graveside services were held.

At the cemetery, a flag-draped wooden casket was carried from the hearse to a stage where members of the Hartless family were seated. After the traditional salute with rifles and a refrain of Taps by a Marine Corps bugler, the flag was neatly folded and given to a sobbing Shawn Dee.