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.

John C. Marshall was a thirty-four year old Newport Beach Police Department Motorcycle Officer. He was killed on patrol on September 29, 1962, in the area of Superior Avenue and Coast Highway, Newport Beach.

Officer Marshall’s death was caused by a motorist who swerved across the center line striking his motorcycle head-on.

Officer Ronald E. Davis was attempting to pass two vehicles as he was responding to an accident call on U.S. Highway 91 east of Barstow. One of the drivers, apparently unaware of the siren or red light, pulled out in front of the patrol car. Davis turned to avoid a collision but went into a broadside skid, rolling the patrol car several times. A passing motorist found the 28-year-old patrolman still strapped in his seat, but he had died instantly. Barstow was Officer Davis’ first assignment since graduating from the Academy less than a year earlier.

Two sheriff’s deputies were killed when their patrol car was struck broadside by a truck at the US 99 and Highway 399 intersection in Greenfield south of Bakersfield.

Deputy Samuel Harold Moore, 27, and Reserve Deputy Robert Paul Grabner, 23, were killed instantly in the collision. Moore, who was driving, and Grabner, who was graduated from the Sheriff’s Reserve academy just a month earlier, were traveling east on Highway 399 and apparently pulled out onto US 99. They made it across the highway between two trucks in the right and center lanes, but were hit by a third truck and trailer traveling south in the left lane. The patrol car was struck on the left side and pushed sideways across the intersection to the center island where it knocked down a signal light pole. It finally came to a stop on the dividing section.

At the time of the crash, Moore, who became a deputy on June 7, 1961, was on a backup call to assist another deputy, but it was not a code 3 call.