For One Police Family, Tragedy Is Never-Ending

The tragedy of still another dead officer was felt intensely Sunday night throughout the police force here. But nowhere was the pain greater than in the family of retired police Officer Charles Riggs.

His son, Tom Riggs--a six-year police veteran--was shot to death Sunday. And his son-in-law, Timothy J. Ruopp, was one of two officers killed in Balboa Park on Sept. 15.

“Look at the years that Charlie Riggs put in on the force and look at the violence now visited upon his son-in-law and his own boy,” Lt. John Morrison, a friend of Charles Riggs, said late Sunday. “The America that Charlie Riggs policed and the America his kids have been forced to police are fundamentally different . . . the America of Charlie would not have tolerated gangs and the freedom and laissez-faire attitude that we allow them today.”

Morrison, a former SWAT commanding officer, spoke sadly of the need to prepare for another police funeral this week.

“We are becoming so well-practiced,” Morrison said. “We do these funerals so well because we are doing so damned many of them.”

Morrison expressed sympathy for Chief William Kolender as well, despite what he said are philosophic differences with some of the chief’s restrictions on his officers’ use of force.

“He has buried more cops than any other San Diego chief in history,” Morrison said. “I know it hurts him deep, real deep, to stand there and watch the procession.” It also was hurting police officers both at the scene of the shootout and at downtown headquarters.

Officer G.M. Kramer sobbed quietly as Riggs stopped breathing while emergency doctors worked feverishly to keep his pulse beating as he lay next to his patrol vehicle. “He just stopped . . . breathing,” Kramer told fellow officers.

Five off-duty policemen ran past the information counter at headquarters screaming, “Is he dead, is he dead?” When an on-duty officer nodded his head “yes,” the off-duty men sobbed, then kicked open the main doors and ran into another building across a passageway, yelling “no, no, no!”

Assistant Chief Kenneth O’Brien said the shootings reflect “the tragedy of this job.”

“The good thing is the friends you make. The bad thing is the friends you lose. What is there to say?”

Riggs, 27, is survived by his wife, Colleen, and one son.

Ruopp was killed along with Officer Kimberly S. Tonahill, the first woman officer killed in the line of duty in San Diego. The two were shot while issuing misdemeanor citations to two men drinking with girlfriends in the Golden Hill area of Balboa Park.

Ironically, Morrison is scheduled to begin work today on a training film reenacting the Balboa Park tragedy.

Times staff writer Kathleen H. Cooley contributed to this report.