Three Arrested in Slaying of Sheriff’s Deputy Trainee : For Kelly Bazer, Bullet Cut Short Realization of a Lifelong Dream

In the seven days Kelly A. Bazer spent at the San Diego County sheriff’s academy, she took her first courses on mob and riot control, self-defense and the martial arts.

But nothing Bazer learned in her brief stint as a deputy sheriff’s trainee could help her as she fled, off-duty and apparently unarmed, from two men who confronted her in a dark Spring Valley street Monday night. A witness said one of the men drew a handgun and shot Bazer in the back as she ran. She died an hour later at Grossmont Hospital.

For Bazer, 28 years old and a mother of two, the last few weeks had been a time of high hopes and rekindled dreams. In the process of divorcing her husband, Mike, Kelly Bazer had set out to realize her lifelong ambition to be a law enforcement officer, a path she followed in an attempt to earn a stable income so she could regain custody of her children.

Bazer chose to join the Sheriff’s Department, instead of the San Diego Police Department, because of the lower number of injuries and fatalities, Nancy Hotchkiss, her stepmother, said in an interview Tuesday.

“She hadn’t worried about (being hurt) because the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t seem to have that problem like the San Diego Police Department does,” Hotchkiss said.

“She knew (being wounded or killed) was probably a possibility, but she never talked about it,” her father, Thomas Hotchkiss, said. “She liked the respect the sheriff had. She thought it was a respectful job. She believed in duty to the community.”

As details of Bazer’s slaying unfolded Tuesday, it appeared that the department would not classify her death as occurring in the line of duty, despite early statements by Sheriff John Duffy that his deputies are on duty 24 hours a day. Police believe Bazer was shot by one of two men who confronted her as they were fleeing after robbing a nearby Safeway market.

“To be quite frank, she was not killed in the line of duty,” a sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. Steve Annibali, said. “At no time did she identify herself as a deputy sheriff. Basically she was a crime victim who was a deputy sheriff.”

Bazer was born in San Diego and spent most of her younger years in El Cajon, where she graduated from Granite Hills High School in 1975. Although she had wanted to work in law enforcement since she was a young girl, she married Mike Bazer a short time after graduation. In 1983 she moved to the tiny southeastern Arizona town of Elfrida with her husband and two children. There, Bazer frequently went on ride-alongs with sheriff’s deputies.

Nancy Hotchkiss said her stepdaughter was determined to become a deputy because she admired the occupation and wanted the financial independence that would help her gain custody of her son and daughter, who are living with their father in Arizona and last saw their mother in September.

Those who got to know Bazer at the academy said she was a likable woman, friendly and inspirational to her colleagues.

“She was kind, always happy; she had a good sense of humor,” said classmate Maria Bailey. “She would have been a great police officer.”

Deputy Jack Strumsky, an academy training officer, said Bazer was neither the most savvy nor physically coordinated trainee in the class. But he said she encouraged her fellow trainees to push on.

“She wouldn’t have been a star, but she would have been somebody they would have remembered,” Strumsky said.

Bazer’s final class as a trainee was an introductory weapons course Monday afternoon. Ron VanRaphorst, one of four deputies on the firearms instruction team, said Bazer sat in front of him as he lectured a group of about 30 students.

“She seemed eager to learn,” VanRaphorst said. “After class I walked out and patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘I know you’re going to do well; you’ll do OK in all your classes, and you’re going to have a good time doing it.’

“It was kind of sad for me because I just saw her and she still stands out in my mind.”

Times staff writer Glenn F. Bunting contributed to this story.