Officer Donald E. Brandon was traveling west when another vehicle heading north struck his patrol vehicle broadside at an intersection in Ridgecrest. The 30-year-old patrolman was killed by the impact.

Investigating officers report Brandon’s patrol car was traveling west on Upjohn Road when it was struck broadside at the Downs Avenue intersection by a northbound car Brandon was thrown out.

Brandon moved to Bakersfield in 1958 after four years of service in the USAF. He was a native of Auburn, Indiana. Brandon had joined the CHP in 1962 and had been a member of the Patrol for less than one year. He left behind a wife, Laura, and a son, Michael Lee, 8.

Officer Charles H. Sorenson had just received a radio call about a robbery in Lodi when he spotted the suspect vehicle, whipped his patrol car into a U-turn and began pursuit. During the chase, the suspect driver lost control of his vehicle, crashed and continued to flee on foot. Sorenson got out of his car and followed the suspect. Apparently he was unaware of the second suspect with a stolen handgun who ambushed the 32-year-old patrolman, killing him with two shots fired at point blank range. Next, the pair commandeered the officer’s patrol car, roared down the highway at speeds close to 130 MPH and were stopped only when they rammed a police barricade, killing a sheriff’s deputy. The felons, two juveniles, were captured and charged in the deaths of the two law enforcement officers.

A pair of ex-convicts accused of shooting down a kidnapped Los Angeles Detective in a Kern County field were pointing accusing fingers at each other following their arrest.

Jimmy Lee Smith, 32 of Los Angeles, arrested in a rooming house in Bakersfield following a swift and efficient dragnet operation by officers. Hours earlier, CHP officers took into custody on US Highway 99, 16 miles south of Bakersfield Gregory Powell, 30, of Boulder City, Nevada.

The chilling story retold by the obviously shocked Los Angeles Police Officer Karl Hettinger, began in Hollywood when he and Campbell, a Korean veteran, stopped a suspicious car at Gower Street and Carlos Avenue. Campbell walked to the car when one man jumped from the car, pointed a .32 caliber revolver at him and shouted to Hettinger to surrender. “I could have shot the other guy,” said Hettinger, “but Campbell would have been shot.”

Powell said Smith held the gun on Campbell and Hettinger, and ordered him to get into the unmarked police car and follow him, but Powell said, he wasn’t able to release the emergency brake. Instead, Hettinger continued, the four, the two officers and the two ex-convicts, got into the suspects car and drove from Los Angeles to Kern County. On the way, the detective recalled, the two men discussed releasing the officers at Gorman, but changed their minds.

The car finally left the highway and traveled along a dirt road for more than three miles, Hettinger said, when the car was stopped approximately 25 miles south of Bakersfield, a mile and a quarter south of the Clifford Mettler Ranch.

Both men were ordered out of the car, Powell stood with his gun trained on Campbell and asked, “Have you ever heard of the Little Lindberg Law?” Campbell, his hands held over his head, answered “Yes.” Powell fired at that instant, he said, hitting Campbell in the mouth. At the same time, Hettinger said, the moon was obscured by clouds. Hettinger turned and fled. As he did, the shocked officer said, he saw the other man Smith pumping bullets into Campbell’s falling body.

Hettinger said he and Campbell originally stopped the suspects’ car because it answered the description of one involved in several armed robberies.

Ian Campbell left behind a wife and two pre-school age daughters.

Follow up report: On July 5, 2005 Jimmy Lee Smith, who previously was convicted for Officer Campbell’s murder and paroled, was sent back to prison for three years for violation of his parole. He was found guilty in a possession charge.