Other Driver Arrested : Detective Killed in Head-On Crash

Off-duty Huntington Beach Police Detective Christopher Spurney had just had dinner with friends in Mission Viejo, played with their new baby daughter and discussed his recent amateur auto race when he headed for his Huntington Beach home on Wednesday night.

“I keep picturing him in my mind, standing in the door and waving my daughter’s arm goodby to him,” said his colleague and best friend, Officer Arden Fick.

A few minutes later, about 10 p.m., Spurney was killed instantly on the San Diego Freeway by a suspected drunk driver whose car had spun out of control and hit Spurney’s vehicle head-on, authorities said Thursday.

Police arrested Richard Gene Gonzales, 37, of El Toro on suspicion of felony drunk driving. According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Gonzalez was convicted in 1985 of drunk driving.

Veered Across Lanes

Gonzales, driving a Toyota, was southbound on the freeway, north of Sand Canyon Road, traveling at about 70 m.p.h. in the far right lane, when his vehicle drifted off to the right into a construction area, said California Highway Patrol Officer C. S. Tetford. Gonzales turned the wheel to the left and veered across all southbound lanes, crossed the center divider and headed into the path of Spurney’s northbound Volkswagen station wagon, he said.

Both cars were totaled by the impact, Tetford said. Gonzales suffered moderate injuries. He was listed in serious but stable condition in the intensive care unit at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Spurney was declared dead at the scene.

“He was my best friend,” Fick said. “They cut down one hell of a good man, both as a police officer and as a human being, but as a human being, No. 1.”

The detective, who investigated residential burglaries, had recently received a medal of merit from the city for his work, police said. “He was the best up there (in the detective bureau). He was a hard worker, a good detective,” Fick said.

Before joining the Huntington Beach force in 1979, Spurney had worked 10 years as an officer for the California Highway Patrol out of the Santa Ana office.

Best Man at Wedding

Fick said he and Spurney had been friends for years. Spurney had been the best man at his wedding, and the Wednesday night dinner at Fick’s Mission Viejo home was the first time Spurney had had a chance to see the Ficks’ baby daughter.

“They really hit it off,” he said.

Spurney himself was the divorced father of two daughters, Kristy, 21, of El Toro, and Lisa, 18, of Fullerton, police said. Fick said the younger daughter is a model, and the older daughter had just finished dancing in a show in New York, Spurney had told Fick at dinner.

A physically active man who looked younger than his 40 years, Spurney was an avid scuba diver who had made a couple of excursions to the Truk Islands in the Pacific to dive around submerged World War II vessels and was planning a trip to the Fiji Islands, Fick said.

“He was kind of an adventurer. When he wanted to go somewhere he did it,” Fick said. Spurney had just returned from participating in an auto race at Laguna Seca in Northern California, where he had taken third place, he said.

“He definitely was living life to the fullest,” Fick said. “All these years, he’s been doing things like that, and then there he is, minding his own business, driving home. . . . There’s no understanding it.”

The mood was sad at the Huntington Beach Police Department Thursday, Fick said.

“Life goes on. Being a police department, we have to answer calls today and serve the public and try to keep people like the guy who did this off the street. But there’s a lot of tears and a lot of people in shock,” Fick said.