Police Murders

The star witness of Georgia's sheriff-killing-sheriff trial took the stand Wednesday and offered a chilling picture of what happened the night Derwin Brown was assassinated. Patrick Cuffy, who was a hit man turned informant, said that two gunmen were hiding in the bushes, he was in a car and another accomplice was down the street -- all ready to spring -- when recently elected Sheriff Brown came trotting up his driveway, arms full of presents and red roses for his wife.

Anaheim's police chief said Saturday that he is "extremely confident" a suspect arrested Friday is responsible for the deaths of four homeless men and that authorities plan to present the homicide cases to Orange County prosecutors next week. Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, of Yorba Linda was booked at the Anaheim jail early Saturday morning. He will be transferred to the Orange County Jail early next week. Authorities did not specify a motive for the killings or provide any details about the suspect or the victim killed Friday evening.

A businessman was sentenced Monday to a pair of life terms after he admitted murdering two El Segundo police officers in 1957 and offered a teary-eyed apology to the families of his victims. "I do not understand why I did this," said Gerald F. Mason, 69, who was caught when an old fingerprint from the crime scene matched his in a new FBI national database. "I detest these crimes.... I still do not want to remember what happened."

A wounded 3-year-old boy and his 5-year-old brother were found hiding Monday at an Anaheim home where police say a day earlier the father shot and killed his wife before turning the gun on himself . The youngest of the children, who was wounded during the Sunday night violence, was found hiding near trash cans at the side of the house after his brother, who was not injured, called 911, Anaheim Police Sgt. Tim Schmidt said. Around the time that police believe the shooting happened, a passerby called police to report shots fired, but the bodies were not found until the next morning.

More than 3,000 law enforcement officers, family members, friends and community residents packed the grounds of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in La Quinta on Monday to honor the memory of Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Bruce Lee, who was killed last week while responding to a domestic violence call. "He gave up his tomorrows so we can have safer todays," state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer told mourners during a 90-minute service. "Bruce's service and sacrifice will never be forgotten."

Detectives were trying to unravel a mystery Wednesday after concluding that a sheriff's deputy originally thought to have accidentally shot herself in the driveway of a Long Beach home was actually killed by someone else. Maria Cecilia Rosa, 30, was found by a newspaper deliveryman slumped over the trunk of her car just before 6 a.m. Tuesday with her service handgun lying near her body.

The fifth member of a seven-man gang that escaped from prison was convicted of murdering an Irving police officer during a Christmas Eve 2000 robbery of a sporting goods store. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Randy Halprin, 25, in the slaying of officer Aubrey Hawkins, 29. Four of the escapees have been sentenced to death in the case, one fugitive killed himself and the last of the gang is expected to be tried later this year.

A man accused of fatally shooting two police officers as they tried to pick him up for a mental health evaluation was charged Friday with murdering them, as well as two people in another Thursday shooting. "A monster is behind bars," Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez said. "This is a day we'll never, ever forget in this community." John Hyde, 48, was arrested near downtown Albuquerque about two hours after the officers were shot Thursday night.

When young men from the downtrodden Parklawn neighborhood graduate from high school and enlist in the military, they are already considered a success. "We know from experience that they have a much better chance to make it out of here," said Antonio Diaz, a local fencing contractor and evangelical minister. Diaz lives in the grimy pocket of clapboard homes and rutted, unlighted streets ruled by the local Parklawn Boyz gang, or PLBz.

It was the 4 1/2 minutes that forever changed the California Highway Patrol. Thirty-eight years ago today, four CHP officers died in a fierce gunfight with a pair of heavily armed motorists outside a Valencia coffee shop after a seemingly routine traffic stop.

Nine members of a Michigan-based anti-government militia that posted its military exercises on the Internet and allegedly plotted to kill police officers were indicted in Detroit on Monday on conspiracy and weapons charges. The indictment said the Hutaree, which describes itself as a "Christian warrior" group, viewed all law enforcement as the enemy. It said members planned a violent act to get the attention of the police, possibly by killing an officer at a traffic stop, then attacking the funeral procession with explosives.

Describing it as "urban terrorism," California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown joined with Riverside County officials Thursday in asking the public to help find those who tried at least three times to kill officers assigned to a Hemet-based gang task force. "It is incredible and even unprecedented for police officers here to be subject to terrorist attack," Brown said at a Riverside news conference. "We have seen it south of the border, but not here yet." The attacks have involved booby traps aimed at either the headquarters of the Hemet-San Jacinto Gang Task Force or officers assigned to the unit, officials said.

Trouble had been brewing in tiny Minkler, a Sierra foothills community about 20 miles east of Fresno, for months. But residents never envisioned that it would end with two people -- one a sheriff's deputy -- dead and two other law enforcement officers wounded. Joel Wahlenmaier, 49, a veteran with the Fresno County Sheriff's Department who investigated homicides and other violent crimes, was killed in Thursday's gunfire. Deputy Mark Harris, 48, was injured. Javier Bejar, a Reedley police officer who responded to the call for backup in the minutes after Wahlenmaier was shot, is on life support at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno and is not expected to survive.

A Fresno County sheriff's deputy was fatally shot and two other officers were wounded Thursday in an all-day confrontation with a barricaded arson suspect in the tiny unincorporated community of Minkler, 20 miles east of Fresno. "This morning, I had to deliver the message that no law enforcement leader wants to deliver, and that was to the wife of a deputy sheriff, that her husband had been killed in the line of duty," Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said at a news conference.

The lead investigator in the slaying in Mexico of El Monte educator Augustin Roberto "Bobby" Salcedo has been killed in an ambush, officials said Saturday. It was not clear whether the death of investigator Manuel Acosta will have any effect on the case, in which little progress had been reported. Authorities would not speculate on whether Acosta's killing was related to Salcedo's. Hundreds of law enforcement officers and judicial officials have been slain in Mexico in recent years, often in an effort to thwart investigations and silence witnesses.

Gregory Powell's crime, and its complex aftermath, were chronicled a generation ago in Joseph Wambaugh's bestselling book "The Onion Field." Now, as the public's recollection of the incident begins to fade, the union that represents nearly 10,000 Los Angeles police officers says it is determined to remind people of the March 1963 kidnapping and execution of Los Angeles Police Officer Ian Campbell. Powell, who was convicted of the crime along with an accomplice, is scheduled for a parole hearing Wednesday.

The lead investigator in the slaying in Mexico of El Monte educator Augustin Roberto "Bobby" Salcedo has been killed in an ambush, officials said Saturday. It was not clear whether the death of investigator Manuel Acosta will have any effect on the case, in which little progress had been reported. Authorities would not speculate on whether Acosta's killing was related to Salcedo's. Hundreds of law enforcement officers and judicial officials have been slain in Mexico in recent years, often in an effort to thwart investigations and silence witnesses.

Before he went on to his career as a police officer in Washington state, Mark Renninger was born and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., and on Friday, more than 1,000 people from his hometown gathered to say farewell to the man who was gunned down with three fellow officers last week near Seattle. Residents braved numbingly cold winds outside Liberty High School, where Renninger was a standout strong safety and an A student, to watch the funeral procession. The procession, which lasted most of the day and wound throughout the city, drew family, friends, police officers and people who had never met Renninger but had heard what happened in a coffee shop in Lakeland, Wash.

Officials in Washington and Arkansas have been trading charges over who was responsible for the release of Maurice Clemmons, accused of killing four Seattle-area police officers while out on bail last weekend. Clemmons had a long history of committing violent crimes, and records released this week show prosecutors and corrections officials in Washington were urgently trying to make sure he remained behind bars. But, they said, they were thwarted by Arkansas' refusal to take Clemmons back and by Washington's bail laws.