Archives: Fallen Officers

Donald H. Lansing

Police Sergeant Donald Herbert Lansing had attended the Department Spring Shoot and was returning to the Monterey Police Department on Tuesday, May 4. All sworn members of the Department were required to attend the event. Lansing was authorized to use his private vehicle to attend. He was on duty and in uniform at the time of the accident.

Lansing was driving a half-ton pickup truck, westbound, when the truck collided with an eastbound 2 ½-ton Army truck, on Gigling Road on the Army base in Fort Ord, on a curve near the intersection of Watkins Gate Road.

Lansing, 38, was killed immediately. The driver of the Army truck was taken to the hospital at Fort Ord where he recovered from minor head injuries.

Funeral services for Lansing were held on Friday, May 7, at the Mission Mortuary. Private cremation followed with inurnment in the Little Chapel-By-The-Sea in Pacific Grove.

Officials determined that the driver of the truck was exceeding the speed limit and was on the wrong side of the road.

Lansing, who was born in Westerville, Ohio, had served in the U.S. Marine Corps for five years and the U.S. Army for three years.

Loren D. Scruggs

Officer Loren D. Scruggs, 35, had stopped a car for a registration violation, when another driver parked across the road and approached him to ask directions. While Scruggs was answering his questions, the young man suddenly pulled a gun and shot the patrol officer. The killer fled but was found later – a suicide. Scruggs was a nine-year veteran of the CHP and had served his entire career in Santa Maria, where he had also attended high school and college.

James P. Lewis

Patrolman James P. Lewis was shot and killed Dec. 29, while off duty when he identified himself as a police officer. He and two other officers had gone to a bar when they noticed several individuals giving the doorman a hard time. Lewis identified himself as an officer and escorted the men to their car to get identification. Instead, one of the men produced a handgun and shot Lewis.

Although mortally wounded, he was able to return fire, striking the vehicle several times. The bullet holes in the car helped identify the suspects when the car was found several days later.

The suspects were arrested and sentenced to life.

Lewis had been with the San Diego Police Dept. for two years.

His wife and daughter survived him.