Police Murders Los Angeles

On the day of the Chinatown murders, Thong Nam Huynh said he sat behind the wheel of a getaway car, smoking cigarettes and sulking. The rain beating on the windshield and the fogged car windows made the street outside invisible. Half a block away, in the narrow alley known as Bamboo Lane, his partners should have been completing a jewelry store robbery that would net them at least $100,000.

A jury recommended Monday that the man convicted in the Westchester killing of the only female U.S. Secret Service agent to die in the line of duty be put to death. Andre Stephen Alexander, 44, was convicted March 5 in the 1980 murder of Agent Julie Cross. He is serving a life prison term for killing his three partners in an unrelated case. Cross, 26, was killed while she and her partner were investigating a counterfeiting operation in Westchester.

Seventeen years ago, Clarence Chance and Benny Powell were convicted of murdering a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy and carted off to prison to serve life sentences. Now, they are on the verge of being freed--not because their time is up, but because authorities are no longer convinced that they committed the crime.

The U.S. Secret Service announced Thursday that it is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the indictment of the killers of a special agent who was shot to death in Los Angeles nine years ago. The announcement of the reward in the murder of Secret Service Agent Julie Y. Cross was timed to coincide with a televised re-creation of the killing scheduled to be broadcast on NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" next Wednesday. Cross--described by officials as the first female federal law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty--was fatally shot during an apparent robbery attempt on June 4, 1980, while she was on surveillance duty on a counterfeiting case near Los Angeles International Airport.

An off-duty sergeant with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was killed early Wednesday in an apparent drive-by shooting in Echo Park, police said. Officials say Sgt. Jose Garcia is the first Los Angeles transit police officer to be shot to death. Garcia, 32, graduated this summer from Cal State L.A. with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, his wife said. "We were just closing escrow on our first house today," Noritza Garcia said in a phone interview.

Three thousand Southern California law enforcement officers attended a funeral Friday to honor slain Los Angeles Police Officer Brian Brown, but most eyes were on the policeman's 7-year-old son. Speakers remembered Brown, a 27-year-old single father, as a brave Marine and vigilant cop. But it was plucky Dylon Brown--saluting crisply and remaining dry-eyed through the one-hour service at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills--who captured everyone's heart.

Los Angeles Patrol Officer Tina Kerbrat, the Police Department's first female officer to die in the line of duty, was honored Friday before 4,000 mourners as a hero whose fatal shooting should humble a society unable to control its violence. "We as a community have not done what is necessary to make our streets, our neighborhoods, our homes and our children safe," said Archbishop Roger Mahony, who led Kerbrat's funeral Mass at St. John Baptist de la Salle Catholic Church in Granada Hills.

A convicted cop killer wrote a "wonderfully encouraging" screenplay from California's death row, actor Ed Asner testified Tuesday. Asner was called to testify in San Fernando Superior Court on behalf of Kenneth Gay by Gay's lawyers, who are trying to persuade a jury to sentence Gay to life in prison rather than death. Gay's screenplay, "A Children's Story," received a $500 prize in 1994, Asner testified.

The semiautomatic rifle used in Tuesday's killing of rookie Los Angeles Policewoman Christy Lynne Hamilton may have been on the list of assault weapons that are generally banned for sale in California. Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams identified the weapon used by the teen-ager believed to have been the gunman in the Northridge shooting as an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. The AR-15 is a rifle manufactured by Colt but also copied in several models by various companies.

For the lawmen who have followed the exploits of Morgan Cody, justice was finally served Wednesday when a federal judge sentenced him to life in prison under an anti-drug trafficking law targeting repeat offenders. Once the owner of a popular Redondo Beach nightclub, Cody has been convicted four times since the mid-1970s of felony narcotics charges. But it is not drug dealing for which he is best remembered.

An Inglewood street gang member was sentenced Friday to two life terms in prison without the possibility of parole in connection with the murders of a police officer and an 18-year-old passerby. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders also ordered Jaime Mares Jr., 24, to serve the two life terms consecutively. The second life sentence has little practical meaning.

A 23-year-old Los Angeles street gang member was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder in the 1998 ambush-style slaying of LAPD Officer Filbert H. Cuesta Jr. The Los Angeles County Superior Court jury that convicted Catarino Gonzalez Jr. will begin hearing evidence Monday on whether Gonzalez, who shot Cuesta outside a Crenshaw-area wedding celebration, should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury voted Wednesday in favor of life imprisonment for a 23-year-old Inglewood man convicted of murder in the shooting deaths of a Los Angeles police officer and an innocent passerby. The jury, apparently convinced that reputed gang member Jaime Alex Mares played a secondary role in the deaths of Officer Brian Brown and 18-year-old Gerardo Sernas in the 1998 shootings, rejected the prosecution's request for the death penalty.

A friend of an Inglewood man convicted in the killing of a Los Angeles police officer and an innocent passerby told a Superior Court jury Wednesday how she desperately tried to steer him away from gang life. Renata Herrera, a longtime confidant and former high school girlfriend of Jaime "Alex" Mares, several times caused defense lawyer Marcia Morrisey to become emotional as she described Mares as a "shy, quiet" man who too often thought "with his heart instead of his head."

Robert S. Mata wears a bracelet inscribed with the badge number of his son and the "end of watch" date when the police officer died in a car crash en route to assist another officer. "When you lose a son, you lose a part of yourself," Mata said Friday after a ceremony to honor Los Angeles Police Department officers who have died in the line of duty, including his son, Robert J. Mata. "I was sorry to see what happened to my son but I'm glad he was an LAPD officer.

Catarino Gonzalez Jr., 23, bragged at a wedding party shortly before the 1998 shooting of LAPD Officer Filbert Cuesta that he planned to kill Cuesta and his partner, prosecutors charged Monday in opening statements at the gang member's death penalty trial. "I'm going to take out Cuesta and [Gary] Copeland," a party-goer heard Gonzalez say, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Darren Levine.

LAPD Officer Paul Verna's widow looked across the courtroom at her husband's killer, who had just been sentenced to death for the second time in 15 years. "I don't accept your apology--I never will," said a tearful Sandy Jackson on Monday. "You viciously took Paul's life and a part of us."

Though he was only 6 at the time, Craig Kerbrat said he still remembers the early morning nine years ago when two Los Angeles police officers knocked on the door and told the family that his mother, Tina Zapata Kerbrat, had been shot to death. Kerbrat had become the first female officer in Los Angeles history to die in the line of duty. "I remember afterward, life was hard," said Craig, 15. "I was ordering pizzas at 6. Everyone was taking care of everyone."

Nearly a decade after Tina Kerbrat became the first female officer in Los Angeles history to die in the line of duty, she will be honored by the community she lost her life protecting. In a ceremony Saturday morning at Sun Valley Park, city officials and community activists will honor Kerbrat by dedicating a large bronze plaque with her Los Angeles Police Department badge number and a brief inscription in English and Spanish.

Saying "truth is in the details," a defense attorney Thursday attacked the case against Kenneth Gay and implored jurors to spare the life of the convicted murderer by suggesting that he is an innocent man. "You cannot morally vote for death in this case," said Deputy Public Defender Ken Lezin, in his closing argument in Gay's penalty-phase retrial, contending that there is "lingering doubt" about Gay's guilt in the 1983 slaying of Los Angeles Police Officer Paul Verna.