Dedicated in Santa Ana : Memorial Honors Slain Law Officers

Carl E. Wilson and Donald W. Schneider, two 40-year-old deputies from the Lakewood substation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, had pursued Carl A. Eckstrom to his Midway City house on Jan. 4, 1973, after Eckstrom, 23, had killed two people at a Cerritos mall.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, Eckstrom came through the front door, firing a submachine gun. Wilson was killed instantly. Schneider was killed as he backpedaled from the door, firing.

It was the only double killing of police officers in the history of Orange County.

Wilson and Schneider were among 23 officers killed in the line of duty who were honored Tuesday at the dedication of the Orange County Peace Officers Memorial at the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

The memorial consists of three white uprights, ranging from about 5 feet to about 15 feet in height, towering over bronze plaques on a granite-tile base. Each of the 23 plaques bears a name and a replica of a badge.

On the uprights are raised figures depicting police officers at work. One shows a lone rider on horseback wearing a sheriff’s badge. It represents Robert Squires, an undersheriff killed in a shoot-out in 1912 in Tomato Springs in the foothills near El Toro.

Squires was the first of the officers named on the memorial to die.

At a large, solemn gathering at the Plaza of the Flags, in the shadow of the Orange County Courthouse, officials lauded the bravery and good deeds of the dead officers.

Family members of the honored men clutched single red roses they later laid on the bronze plaques. Twenty-four police chiefs, the county sheriff and a Los Angeles County sheriff’s administrator were present in full uniform to honor the men.

Hundreds of uniformed officers, including classes from the Orange County sheriff’s training academy and Golden West College, sat attentively as floral sprays were ceremoniously laid side by side on the memorial.

It wasn’t just family members who choked with emotion as the air filled with “Amazing Grace,” played on bagpipes by Richard Cook,29, of Redlands.

“That was something special,” Lt. Daniel J. Spratt of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said.

Many said it struck home when the Rev. Bryan Crow pointed out in his benediction that, while the dedication was a fitting tribute and a lovely service, “our hearts have been caused to hurt afresh.”

It was a mixture of joy and sorrow for the family of Donald F. Reed, a 27-year-old Garden Grove police officer who was killed on June 7, 1980. He was the last officer slain in Orange County.

“It was a lovely ceremony, just lovely,” said his mother, Rita Reed of Riverside.

With her was her husband, Keith Reed, as well as the slain officer’s widow, Linda, and their sons, Jason, 9, and Justin, 8. Also there were his two brothers, Raymond Novell and Matthew Novell.

Reed was killed when he and three other officers tried to arrest a drug suspect, Gordon Lee Mink, at a Garden Grove Boulevard bar. Mink spun away from them, pulled a gun from inside his coat and fired several shots, killing Reed and wounding two other officers and two bar patrons.

Mink was convicted of first-degree murder and is now on Death Row at San Quentin. His appeal is before the state Supreme Court, and prosecutors expect a decision by the end of the year.

“Donald was the kind of policeman who would organize kids to whitewash a fence on weekends,” said his brother Raymond. “This memorial is very appropriate. It’s tough for us today. But in the long run it’s going to be a great thing.”

One of the largest turnouts was for Jerry S. Hatch, a 23-year-old Fullerton police officer killed on duty when a drunk driver struck him as he was loading equipment into his car. There were 16 Hatch family members and six friends in their party. Ruth Hatch, who now lives in Arizona, took her 14-year-old daughter, Audrey, to the memorial to show the girl her father’s plaque. She was 2 years old when he was killed.

“She has plenty of pictures of him, and she’s heard plenty of stories,” Ruth Hatch said. “And she has this today. We’re honored just to be invited. It’s a wonderful idea.”

The idea had been kicking around various police agencies in the county for some time when members of the Sheriff’s Advisory Council decided a few months ago to raise the $80,000 needed to do something about it.

The advisory group is made up primarily of business and professional people in Orange County who want to support law enforcement. Anthony R. Moiso, head of the group and president of Rancho Mission Viejo, told the crowd Tuesday that the memorial was important so the community can “re-establish our memories” of the slain officers.

Of the 23, 14 were slain by suspects and nine were killed in traffic incidents. One of those was a helicopter pilot for the Anaheim Police Department, 35-year-old Gary A. Nelson, whose chopper crashed on Aug. 15, 1975, during a narcotics surveillance operation.

Three were Orange County sheriff’s deputies; three were California Highway Patrol officers; four were from the Garden Grove Police Department; two were from the Santa Ana Police Department, and there was one each from police departments in Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Fullerton, Buena Park, Tustin, Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Cypress and San Clemente. And there were the two from Los Angeles County.

Relatives of Wilson and Schneider were present, along with Chief Richard Freeman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Absent from the ceremony was Capt. Andy Romero of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. It was Romero, as a young patrol officer, who was the backup for Wilson and Schneider that day. He opened fire on Eckstrom in an attempt to protect the two Los Angeles County officers. He finally wounded Eckstrom and captured him.

Eckstrom now is serving two concurrent life sentences at Soledad state prison. He comes up for a parole hearing in July, 1988.

Romero was out of town Tuesday and unable to make the ceremony. But a few weeks ago, sitting in the office of his superior, Assistant Sheriff Walter Fath, Romero talked briefly about that shooting.

“It’s not something you can ever forget,” he said. “They were two very brave police officers. When I hear someone knocking the police, I think about those two.”