Deputy Paul Wilms specialized in working with at-risk youths around the San Gabriel Valley -- a lawman described by Sheriff Lee Baca as someone "who probably saved hundreds of lives" through his intervention.
Maria Cecilia Rosa was a fresh-faced deputy who did her work from behind a desk at the County Jail but was soon to make the move to the streets as a patrol officer.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday April 07, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 67 words Type of Material: Correction
Deputy's slaying: An article in the March 31 California section about the slaying of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa in Long Beach said that she began an internship as a dental hygienist in 2004, quoting the dentist as saying she was "a good hygienist." She actually was a dental assistant starting in 1994, and the dentist had praised her work as a dental assistant.
Pierre Bain was a veteran motorcycle cop who patrolled the wide-open high desert of Lancaster and took his job so seriously that he issued 2,000 tickets last year.
All the deputies were killed over the last week in a series of blows that has left the Sheriff's Department reeling.
Wilms was found dead in the Industry station Thursday after accidentally shooting himself while cleaning his gun.
Two days before, Rosa was gunned down in the driveway of a Long Beach home as she prepared to go to work. And March 23, Bain died after his motorcycle crashed during a chase in Lancaster.
"We're in a fluctuation of sadness and anger and sadness again," said an emotional Baca on Thursday after comforting deputies at the Industry station. "Whenever you have multiple series of deaths, you have compounded grief."
It is the proximity of their deaths that has drawn attention to three deputies who may well have never met in a far-flung 9,000-person agency.
"I cannot remember a series of killings like this in all my 34 years in the department," said Capt. John Franklin as he stood near the Industry station soon after Wilms' body was discovered.
To some, Wilms' death felt almost surreal, because sheriff's personnel already had the customary black sashes over their badges to memorialize Rosa and Bain.
"No man or woman who wears the badge can say it doesn't affect them," Baca said. "But three deaths in seven or eight days can challenge the best of them."
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At the Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles, where Maria Cecilia Rosa worked with many colleagues who came through the Sheriff's Academy together, the mood for the last few days has been distinctly somber, said Capt. Tim Cornell, who worked daily with the young deputy.
"People are pretty well devastated here," he said. "There was a tight bond, particularly with academy classmates here."
Rosa, 30, was known for her bright smile and enthusiastic attitude, even at the routine jail paperwork that she frequently had to handle. But she was also tough -- something friends said stemmed from losing both parents when she was 13.
