COUNTYWIDE : Services for Slain Officer This Week

A Catholic Mass and funeral will be held this week for slain Fullerton policeman Tommy De La Rosa, who was ambushed last week by alleged drug dealers apparently unaware that they were being targeted in an undercover sting operation.

De La Rosa, 43, was fatally wounded last Thursday at a modest stucco home in Downey where he was to deliver a promised 200-kilogram shipment of cocaine in exchange for $4 million.

A Mass will be held for the father of four at 7 p.m. today at St. Angela Merici Catholic Church, 585 S. Walnut Ave., in Brea.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at First Evangelical Free Church, 2801 Brea Blvd.

After the funeral, a motorcade will proceed to Memory Gardens Memorial Park in Brea, 455 W. Central Ave.

De La Rosa was the 29th Orange County police officer to die in the line of duty, but the first to be killed by gunfire during a drug operation.

He was shot five times when at least four gunmen opened fire as he stepped from a late-model van to complete the undercover drug transaction. Before dying, he shot and killed one suspect, and police later arrested 13 others with suspected ties to the drug ring.

The sting was a joint operation by several law enforcement agencies to investigate an Orange County cocaine ring whose activities were known to extend into the Los Angeles area. Joining Fullerton police in the investigation were officers from Anaheim, Brea, Cypress, La Habra and Placentia.