Officer, Suspect Slain in Drug Sting Shoot-Out : Narcotics war: A daylight ambush ended the life of a Fullerton policeman posing as a cocaine seller to gather evidence against a drug ring, police said.

An undercover operation meant to lure drug traffickers into a $4-million cocaine deal ended in a bloody ambush Thursday, leaving a veteran Fullerton police officer and one suspect dead.

Officer Tommy De La Rosa, a 43-year-old father of four, was part of a multiagency drug task force that had targeted an Orange County cocaine ring, but the operation went awry, police said.

De La Rosa, a 10-year veteran of the Police Department, had arranged with the suspects to sell them millions of dollars in cocaine, police officials said, but when he arrived at the house where the exchange was to take place, they allegedly ambushed him, hoping to steal the drugs.

The suspects apparently did not know that De La Rosa was an officer when they opened fire on him, police said.

De La Rosa, who was hit from two sides at once, was pronounced dead at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The dead suspect was not identified.

Two men, said to have been in their 20s or early 30s, were arrested near the scene, and two more, who fled the area on foot, were caught after a 2 1/2-hour search that brought in dozens of officers, at least two helicopters and a special canine unit.

In addition, two other suspects said to be connected to the ring but not the shooting were arrested Thursday night in Fullerton. An eighth suspect is still at large and was being sought, police said. None of those arrested were identified.

The undercover operation--which involved officers from the Fullerton, Anaheim, Brea, Cypress, La Habra and Placentia police departments--began more than two weeks ago, when officers received information about a cocaine ring operating inside Orange County, Fullerton Police Capt. Lee DeVore said. At that time, a house at 8937 Arrington Ave. in Downey was put under surveillance.

The operation was to have culminated Thursday in a “reverse sting,” during which the suspects were ostensibly to buy $4 million worth of cocaine.

At about 3:20 p.m., De La Rosa, posing as a drug dealer, pulled into the driveway of the beige house carrying a small quantity of cocaine to be used in the sting, DeVore said. But as De La Rosa stepped out of his van and walked around the house, the suspects waiting for him opened fire, police said.

De La Rosa, who was armed with a small-caliber handgun, returned fire as he ducked for cover, hitting one of the suspects, who staggered into the house and later died.

Hit in the stomach by at least one shotgun blast, De La Rosa crumpled in the driveway, his white shirt drenched in blood.

The shots rocketed through the ethnically diverse neighborhood of well-kept lawns and stucco houses. It was a quiet summer afternoon, and children were playing in their front yards at the time.

“I thought it was firecrackers,” said neighbor Brenda Dulac, 34, who was walking out her front door when the shooting occurred. “Something went over my head. It was like a buzzing noise.”

Next door, Larry Scott, 41, was watching television when he heard what he said were between six and eight shots. He and a friend, Louie Royval, rushed to the back yard and spotted two men running from the neighboring house, one carrying a pistol and the other a shotgun.

The armed men raced around to the front yard, where four or five more shots were fired, Scott said. De La Rosa lay in the driveway next to the gray van he had arrived in, bleeding heavily.

From his house, Royval said he watched as officers who had been watching from nearby vehicles rushed over and desperately tried to revive De La Rosa. Two officers dressed in plainclothes but wearing jackets that identified them as police administered cardiovascular resuscitation while an Anaheim police helicopter rushed to the scene.

The helicopter landed in a yard next door within a minute or two, Royval said, and two officers boarded it with De La Rosa.

The suspects scattered, but two of them hid out in a one-bedroom house next door, and they were quickly apprehended by the 20 or so police officers at the scene.

Stunned neighbors watched the arrests, dumbfounded by the sight of blood in the driveway where De La Rosa fell.

“I seen them take the two guys out,” said one man who lives across the street but asked to remain anonymous. “And they were handcuffed. They had their shirts open. It looks like they must have been searched.”

While the first two suspects were caught within minutes, tracking down the other two proved more difficult, as they fled on foot from the cul-de-sac where the gunfight occurred.

Police cordoned off the area, and by about 4:30 p.m., officers lined the Santa Ana Freeway, pistols and shotguns drawn, eyes riveted in the direction of the crime scene. More patrolled a footbridge in the area, and along nearby Telegraph Road, several police officers paced with shotguns. Low-flying helicopters buzzed overhead.

California Highway Patrol officers aided in the search, closing the Lakewood Boulevard off-ramp of the freeway.

Canine patrols were also called to the scene, and they scoured the area for more than two hours before locating the remaining suspects in another neighborhood house. The two men were arrested about 6:15 p.m.

In Fullerton, De La Rosa’s colleagues were deeply shaken by the killing, apparently the first shooting death of a Fullerton police officer in the department’s history. Some officers were visibly affected, and many spoke highly of De La Rosa, who lived in Brea and joined the narcotics unit about five years ago after about five years on patrol.

“He was an outstanding officer, a Vietnam veteran, a family man with four kids,” DeVore said. “He was top-notch.”

Times staff writer Ron Smith and correspondent Shannon Sands contributed to this report.

DRUG BUST GONE AWRY 1. De La Rosa arrives at 8937 Arrington Ave. to complete a drug transaction about 3:20 p.m. 2. Five suspects ambush De La Rosa as he goes around the house. During the shoot-out, De La Rosa fatally wounds one of the suspects and is mortally wounded himself. 3. Four of the suspects flee, but two are arrested quickly by police in a house next door. Police cordon off the neighborhood and begin a massive search. 4. The two remaining suspects are arrested in the neighborhood about 6:15 p.m. Source: Downey and Fullerton Police Departments