Police Murders Los Angeles County

A photograph taken by an automated teller machine camera provides more evidence of what investigators believe is a possible link between the gunman who killed two police officers at a Holiday Inn in Torrance last month and an armed robbery last year at a real estate office in Gardena. Gardena Police Lt.

A 23-year-old Los Angeles gang member convicted in the ambush-style murder of LAPD Officer Filbert Cuesta Jr. three years ago was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry imposed the maximum prison sentence against Catarino Gonzalez Jr., a member of the notorious 18th Street gang. A jury in June convicted Gonzalez of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Cuesta outside a Crenshaw-area wedding celebration.

A Superior Court judge sentenced a 25-year-old reputed gang member to death Tuesday for the execution-style slayings of two Compton police officers in 1993 and the murder of a third man a year before. Judge Edward A. Ferns read the detailed execution order to a stoic Regis Deon Thomas after an emotional hourlong hearing in which the officers' parents and Compton's police chief pleaded for the death penalty while Thomas, his wife and his mother pleaded for mercy.

Every month or so, the women of Brooks Circle gathered for a girls' night out. Usually, there was a birthday to celebrate; sometimes not. Mainly, they met just to get out of the house and gab. Whether there was a specific reason or not, there was always plenty to talk about. This summer, on the Saturday night after Independence Day, eight or nine of the ladies of Brooks Circle met at BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse in Valencia. A couple of the women had a very specific reason for meeting.

When two Compton police officers were gunned down Feb. 22 during a traffic stop, investigators had little more to go on than statements from witnesses about the type of vehicle that had been pulled over and sketchy descriptions of one, maybe two suspects. But that sparse information would unexpectedly lead to results that one police official agreed was extraordinary: Three other homicides and two attempted murders were apparently solved.

A Pomona police officer was killed Saturday in a darkened, isolated industrial complex, fatally shot in the chest despite the bulletproof vest he was wearing. Discovered lying by his patrol car about 1:30 a.m., Daniel Fraembs, 37, became the first Pomona police officer shot to death in the line of duty in the city's 108-year history.

Special Agent Paul Seema had all the edges. Born in Thailand, he had worked its borders and jungle runs and at 51 was a unique and experienced hand on Asia, its drug dealers and their quickness to kill. But in Los Angeles, it wasn't enough. Special Agent George Montoya was younger but had caution. He was a meticulous arranger, an orderly 34-year-old with a knack for working any program and balancing its odds in his favor.

A man sentenced to death Friday for the murder of a Maywood police officer and a Van Nuys grocery store clerk said he should be executed for his crimes. "I deserve it," Edgardo Sanchez Fuentes, 24, told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor. Connor sentenced Fuentes' co-defendants, Benjamin Navarro, also known as Hector Reyna, 24, and Jose Contreras, 22, to life prison terms.

A suspect sought in the wounding of a veteran California Highway Patrol officer has been identified as the armed bandit who committed a robbery shortly before the shooting in Glassell Park, authorities said Tuesday. Deputy Dist. Atty. Dino Fulgoni said he expects the district attorney's office to add a robbery count to an attempted murder charge already filed against Florentino Silva, 25, a Glendale resident, in the shooting of CHP Patrolman Gary Baker, 32, over the weekend.

Just hours before trial began for the accused killer of Los Angeles Police Officer Daniel Pratt, the slain officer's brother, who is also an LAPD officer, was shot at on the Long Beach Freeway while on his way home early Wednesday, authorities said. Investigators discounted the possibility that the freeway shooting was connected to the brother's death, however. "They're in no way connected," said Lt. Ken Lady, an LAPD investigator.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms learned more than a year ago that a convicted felon had illegally purchased thousands of rounds of ammunition, a disclosure that raises questions about the investigative procedures that resulted in a shootout at the man's home that left a sheriff's deputy dead and terrorized a neighborhood. ATF agents also were told by neighbors of James Allen Beck in the weeks before the Aug.

As the organ played "Ave Maria" and police officers wept, thousands of mourners filled a Glendale church and the streets outside to bid farewell to Hagop "Jake" Kuredjian, the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy killed in a Santa Clarita Valley shootout. "The Lord has received his servant," Bishop Moushegh Mardirossian said during the funeral service at St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church. "He claims those who are his own." The gathering, including hundreds of uniformed officers and Gov.

Preliminary autopsy and ballistics findings confirm that a Santa Clarita Valley gunman who held officers at bay Friday fired the shot that killed a deputy, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Monday. The angle of the shot, analysis of the bullet that hit Deputy Hagop "Jake" Kuredjian and statements by suspected gunman James Allen Beck all indicate that Beck was responsible for the death, sheriff's officials said, seeking to dismiss speculation that Kuredjian was hit by "friendly fire."

The first bullet tore through their walk-in closet. By then, Phil and Marilyn Lombardi were cowering on their bathroom floor, shielding their 38-hour-old infant girl from the gunfire. And until then, they had little reason to doubt their friend Jim Beck. The tales their next-door neighbor told were wild, but they believed him. He talked about his exploits as a U.S. marshal, about hunting fugitives all over the country, and about a shootout that left his German shepherd wounded.

The violence that claimed the life of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy in the Santa Clarita Valley caught authorities off guard, plunging a quiet neighborhood into such chaos that officers fired not only at the suspect but into homes on both sides of his, officials said Saturday.

At age 27, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Hagop "Jake" Kuredjian saved the life of a Malibu woman who had fallen on a steep hillside and was dangling from a tree branch near the edge of a cliff. Kuredjian inched down the incline and coaxed the woman into dropping five feet, where he caught her and pulled her to safety.

A suspected gang member and his girlfriend, accused of fatally shooting a Los Angeles police officer last month, surrendered early Thursday to a television news reporter and later were arrested at the newsman's station in Hollywood. The capture of Kirkton Phenor Moore, 27, and Raylene Brooks, 17, for the Sept. 3 murder of Los Angeles Police Officer Daniel Pratt had been a top priority for local law enforcement authorities.

They came in uniforms and jeans, some wearing badges while others wore baseball caps. Hundreds of people including police officers, city officials, community members and schoolchildren gathered at the Hollenbeck Division on 1st Street in remembrance of Los Angeles Police Department Officer Steve Gajda, the first Hollenbeck officer to die in the line of duty since 1969.

A former police officer with a criminal record and a penchant for firearms allegedly shot and killed a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy during a wild gun battle Friday, then apparently died in a fire that consumed his house and blackened the sky over a terrified Santa Clarita Valley neighborhood.

When Stevenson Ranch grabs headlines, it's for the subdivision's award-winning but crowded schools, the quick turnover of its comfortable homes and the safety of its curving streets, where so many big-city cops have chosen to live. On Friday, Stevenson Ranch's Blue Ribbon school was evacuated, a $340,000 house was in ashes and a sheriff's deputy was dead.