Kolender Urges Gun Control in Honoring Slain Officers

San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender called for tougher gun-control laws Tuesday during a Senate ceremony honoring 12 California police officers slain in the line of duty last year.

Kolender, long an advocate of gun control, was keynote speaker at the ceremony that was also attended by Gov. George Deukmejian and Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp.

Using the platform to advocate laws that will “stop the proliferation of handguns,” Kolender said: “The days of the Wild West . . . have long passed.”

Guns are too readily available to street gang members and drug dealers, said Kolender, who added: “I am convinced that this kind of craziness makes police work less predictable and more dangerous.

“Almost all police officers killed last year were killed with firearms, most of them handguns.”

San Diego Police Agent Thomas Riggs, killed in a March, 1985, confrontation with Sagon Penn, who is now on trial, was among the 12 officers honored.

Kolender did not mention the controversial murder case during his remarks, but noted that San Diegans “have buried 9 police officers in the last 11 years.”

“I have felt physically sick . . . as I watched in horror” as policemen’s relatives learned of their loved one’s slayings, Kolender said.

Other fallen officers honored during the Capitol ceremony were San Jose Officers Robert A. White and Henry Bunch, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Clifford Sanchez, state prison guard H.D. (Hal) Burchfield, Tulare County Sheriff’s Deputies Monty Conley and Joe Landin, Solano County Sheriff’s Deputy Jose Cisneros, Los Angeles Police Detective Thomas Williams, and California Highway Patrol Officers David Copleman, Raymond Miller and Dean Esquibel.

Kolender supported an unsuccessful 1982 initiative that would have increased restrictions on possession of handguns, and has vocally opposed efforts to weaken federal gun-control laws.