Rialto Police Officer Killed as His Wife Waits in Patrol Car

As his wife waited in his patrol car, a veteran Rialto police officer was shot and killed early Monday by man who later barricaded himself in a house for five hours before surrendering, police said. Another officer and a resident of the house were wounded.

Sgt. Gary Wolfley, 31, a 12-year veteran of the force, was the first policeman to die in the line of duty in Rialto, a city of 53,000 residents about 55 miles east of Los Angeles.

Rialto Police Lt. Brian Hebbard gave this account:

Wolfley responded to a 1:36 a.m. call about two suspicious people at an all-night gas station at Foothill Boulevard and Eucalyptus Avenue. Riding with him in the police car was his wife, Candette, who recently became a police officer in nearby Fontana.

“We have a policy that encourages wives of Rialto police officers to travel with their husbands . . . to know what they are going through in the field,” Hebbard said.

On arrival, Wolfley ran after a man who fled behind the station. Moments later, his wife heard a gunshot and put out a radio call for assistance. She then ran behind the building and saw her husband had been shot.

When Rialto Police Officer Joe Cirilo responded to the call for help, the gunman fired a round that smashed through the officer’s windshield. Cirilo suffered abrasions on his right hand from “bullet fragments or flying glass,” Hebbard said.

Ran From Scene

With officers in pursuit, the gunman ran from the scene and crashed through the front door of a house on Acacia Avenue, a quarter of a mile away, where he shot resident William Haverstick in the right thigh and took him hostage, Hebbard said. Another man in the house fled to safety.

The area was surrounded by officers from a half a dozen agencies, and a hostage negotiating team was called in. About five hours later, the suspect surrendered.

Dennis Mayfield, 26, was booked on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail in San Bernardino County Jail, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Bryant said. Another man believed to have been with Mayfield at the shooting scene, Howard Bell, 23, of Rialto, was arrested at the gas station and was being held on suspicion of being an accessory to murder.

Wolfley, who was shot in the face, was taken to San Bernardino Community Hospital, where he died at 3:11 a.m., Hebbard said.

Preliminary investigation suggests that Wolfley was shot with a .357 Magnum, “possibly his own gun,” Hebbard said. Wolfley’s gun was not found on him, and Mayfield threw a police-issue .357 Magnum from a window of the house before surrendering, Hebbard said. However, investigators have not determined that it was Wolfley’s gun or that a .357 was the murder weapon.

Wolfley, who also is survived by a 3-year-old son, “was a very extroverted individual, well-liked in the department,” Hebbard said.

A longtime Rialto resident, Wolfley was 19 when he joined the Police Department as a radio dispatcher in 1974. He moved up the ranks, serving as patrol officer, training officer and detective before being promoted to patrol sergeant in May, 1985.