The Death of a Courageous Cop

It’s become a cliche to refer to the men and women of a city’s police force as “its finest.” But we all realize how apt the description is when we admire the courage and dedication of a police officer like Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Kuster, even as we grieve his death.

Kuster, a 24-year LAPD veteran and one of its most respected homicide investigators, died in a shoot-out with an armed and apparently drunken patron of a restaurant in the Hollywood Hills last week.

Kuster was off duty, minding his own business when the angry man began threatening other patrons in the bar with a sophisticated, laser-equipped pistol. Kuster could have stayed out of harm’s way, but his policeman’s instincts would not let him leave innocent people in danger. He stood and tried to calm the armed man. But when he identified himself as a policeman, Kuster’s killer opened fire. Despite being hit four times in the chest, Kusterwas able to pull his own weapon and kill his assailant.

It remained for Kuster’s colleagues in LAPD Homicide to discover a tragic irony in the incident, and raise some troubling questions.

Kuster’s killer was an illegal immigrant from Hungary with a long criminal record--including at least one other gunshot killing that Kuster had booked him on eight years ago. No one can say if the two men recognized each other in the moments before they died.

Why was Kuster’s killer in this country after having been paroled from state prisons in both California and Nevada? Immigration officials had tried to deport him, as the law requires, but his native country wouldn’t take him back.

There’s got to be a better way to handle criminal aliens.

And how did an ex-con get a 9-millimeter pistol so sophisticated that it had a laser beam to illuminate its target? What a frustrating and frightening illustration of the need for stricter gun-control laws. For a long time opponents of gun control counted police--themselves expert at using guns and other weapons--among their political allies.

But that’s changing--not least because the bad guys are finding it too easy to get guns and use them against good men like Detective Kuster.