Sketch Aids Probe of Officer’s Death

A composite sketch of a suspect in the ambush slaying of a Los Angeles police detective who was gunned down Thursday outside a Canoga Park church was provided by authorities Friday.

In releasing the drawing, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said the slaying of veteran North Hollywood Division Detective Thomas C. Williams, 42, was an “assassination.” He said investigators are reviewing Williams’ recent cases in an attempt to find a motive and to identify a possible suspect.

The detective was shot Thursday afternoon as he picked up his 5-year-old son, Ryan, from school at Faith Baptist Church in the 7600 block of Glade Avenue.

The boy, warned by his father to “duck,” fell to the sidewalk next to his father’s pickup truck as several shots were fired from a passing car by a man wearing a ski mask. The boy was unhurt.

Police said the car was a white 1975-78 Chevrolet with primer spots. Witnesses reported seeing the car, with an an unmasked man behind the wheel, parked near the school just before the shooting.

The composite includes a front view and a profile of a man described as a Latino or Anglo, 28 to 32 years of age, with dark brown or black hair.

Meanwhile, extra officers were assigned Friday to a San Fernando Superior Court courtroom where the trial of Williams’ most recent case concluded. The detective had spent much of the day Thursday testifying as a prosecution witness against robbery suspect Daniel Steven Jenkins, 30, who was found guilty of one count of robbery and another of assault. He was ordered jailed pending sentencing Nov. 27.

Police spokesman Lt. Dan Cooke said the armed officers were assigned to guard Superior Court Judge Bruce Sottile and attorneys in the case, because another witness in the robbery case was shot by an assailant July 4.

Although critically wounded, the witness, George Carpenter, manager of a North Hollywood movie theater complex, survived the attack at a restaurant near the theaters. Carpenter was dropping off the night’s receipts at a North Hollywood bank when he was robbed Oct. 14, 1984.

Focus of Investigation

Cooke said the Jenkins case “was the first thing we looked at.” But investigators said Jenkins, who had been free on $16,000 bail until Friday, did not fit the description of the gunman in the Williams slaying. Jenkins is black.

Defense attorney Norman Koplof said Jenkins, who denied any involvement with the shooting, appeared “surprised and shocked” by Williams’ death when he arrived in court Friday morning.

Jurors sent a note to Sottile on Friday morning to let him know they had heard about Williams’ death on the news. The judge called them back into the courtroom briefly to remind them that they were “not to consider anything you may have heard, read or seen in the news media, including the television” during their deliberations.

Attorney’s Viewpoint

Koplof said after the verdict that he believes the sudden attention on Jenkins’ case influenced the jury.

“I think the jury had to have been affected and shocked by that,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maureen Duffy-Lewis, who prosecuted the case, did not appear in court Friday. Billy D. Webb, head deputy district attorney for the San Fernando office, said the prosecutor was told about the attack on Williams and was under armed guard at an undisclosed location. He said she would be back at work Monday.

Webb said the extra precautions were justified by both the Williams shooting and the attack on Carpenter.

Williams had worked 10 years at the North Hollywood Division, half that time as a detective. He recently was named station house Officer of the Month.

“The guy just left no stone unturned,” said Lt. Ron La Rue, the slain officer’s commander. “He wasn’t satisfied with anything less than doing optimum-level investigations.”

In Williams’ Canoga Park neighborhood, Betty Broussard, a friend for 13 years, tearfully described him as “‘an extremely caring father and a very concerned neighbor.”

Colleagues said Williams went directly from the courthouse to pick his son up at school Thursday.

“I think the Lord really protected the children here,” said Principal Margaret Rasmussen, whose school assembly hall was riddled by the bullets that penetrated walls and a window and ricocheted off a table. Children were present attending Halloween festivities but none was hurt.

“That room is normally always used for day care, always,” Rasmussen said. “One of the ladies who run it said she just had a feeling that she didn’t want to use that room Thursday.

Topic in Classrooms

The fatal shooting was discussed at student chapel services Friday, as well as in various classrooms, school administrators said.

“I told my class that it’s a mean world out there and there are some people with real problems,” algebra teacher Steve Labins said. “I said we should pray for that boy. And we did.”

Other students said their prayers will also be offered for Williams’ assailant.

“The man who did this was pretty cruel, but I’m going to pray for him,” said Brian Laird, a 13-year-old eighth-grader.

“What this appears to be is an assassination,” Gates said at a Parker Center news conference. “And I can’t recall another one (fatal shooting of an officer) like it. He was a very fine detective and he did a lot of good work. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult for us. . . . He put some very bad people in jail.”

Many motorists stopped Friday on Glade Avenue to view the shooting scene. One of them, Paul Marquez, 23, a San Fernando carpenter, said he had known Williams for several years. He said the detective had “taken my life and turned it around . . . I was running around with the wrong crowd and was a runaway when I met him at the police station. He had a lot of compassion. He liked kids a lot.”

Police said a rosary will be recited for Williams at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in Canoga Park. Funeral services will be at the church at 10 a.m. Tuesday, with burial at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery.

Times staff writers Sandy Banks, Patricia Klein, Janet Rae-Dupree and Allan Jalon contributed to this article.