Slain Officer Kept His Colleagues’ Spirits Up : Crime: Fellow Southeast S.D. officers remember Ronald W. Davis, killed in line of duty Tuesday, as a dedicated cop and family man with an infectious sense of humor that helped them cope.

Ronald W. Davis was remembered Tuesday as a hard-working cop who made his colleagues laugh, especially when the job got too scary, and who cared about family more than anything.

He was also saluted for having an impact on the tough Southeast San Diego neighborhood where he worked and died.

Harry B. Jones, who manages an apartment building for low-income residents in the complex where Davis was killed Tuesday, remembers a good cop who calmed residents’ fears by helping curb crime and violence.

Calls for police fell from about 300 a month in recent years to about six a week because of a long-established program called “problem-oriented policing.”

“About six to eight months ago, officer Davis and the others adopted us to try and clean this place out,” Jones said. “Now we have one of the quietest complexes in the county.”

Jones became friendly with all the officers who came by as often as twice a night. He especially liked Davis, whom he described as “happy-go-lucky” and serious about his work.

“The worst part of it was that he was a damn good friend of mine,” Jones said.

It was that “damn good friend” that fellow officers E.A. Stafford and J.B. Scruggs couldn’t stop thinking about Tuesday as Davis became the 11th San Diego officer killed in the line of duty in 11 years.

Stafford, 26, was in a coin laundry when the radio told him an officer had been killed.

“All they said was that he was 24 years old,” Stafford said. “I immediately thought . . . of who it might be.”

Minutes later, he learned that it was a close friend, one with “a great laugh and a great sense of humor.”

Scruggs, 29, learned about the shooting death of Ron Davis from his wife, who paged him in a class he was taking at Southwestern College. Scruggs spent the rest of the day thinking about “the good times and the good man,” who left behind a wife and two young sons.

On many occasions, Stafford, Scruggs and Davis worked the “graveyard” shift (9 p.m. to 7 a.m.) out of the Southeast Substation of the San Diego Police Department. The officers talked often about the mean streets they covered--but Davis did so with a difference.

“He definitely added a huge component of personality and laughter,” Scruggs said with a smile. “Humor is the best medicine in this kind of work . . . in any kind, I guess. And he really kept things loose.”

Stafford said that Davis was like the cutup on a baseball team--in this case, the office softball team--who, by the force of his personality, kept a cop’s grim work from feeling too frightening.

Scruggs and Stafford talked about the ironies, noting that Davis had won the Jerry Hartless Award for outstanding work in his police academy class before joining the force in October, 1989.

Hartless, also assigned to the Southeast Substation, was killed in the line of duty three years ago, the last officer in the department before Davis to die that way.

Scruggs and Stafford--who are partners--talked about the portraits that hang on the wall in the lobby of the substation, at 7222 Skyline Drive. The inscriptions read: Jerry Hartless, January 31, 1988. Thomas Edward Riggs, March 31, 1985. Archie Buggs, November 4, 1978.

All were Southeast officers killed on the job. Now, Scruggs said, the lobby will have a fourth portrait.

“Ron loved his work . . . maybe too much,” he added, saying that Davis was unusually intense about police work and had a “terrific” attitude. “And (Tuesday), he just walked into it. He had no chance. There was nothing he could do.”

“Damn,” Stafford said, shaking his head. “He was about to get off work. They say the thing happened around 5 a.m., and Ron was about to get off work (at 6:30 a.m.).”

As for the portraits in the lobby, Scruggs called them a “reality check, a combination tribute and treatment, a reminder of how quick you can be here one minute and gone the next.”

One of the saddest facts, both said, was that Davis, a former Marine from a small town in Oregon, talked often about the dangers of the work--of staring death in the face.

“But he always said that, somehow, he’d get himself home,” Stafford said.

“Yeah,” Scruggs said. “He, like any of us, felt that, no matter what happens out there, he’d end up at home, and he’d be safe.”

Scruggs and Stafford said that, already, Davis’ death has made them re-examine themselves and the work they chose.

“It reminded me of an incident that the two of us encountered back in April,” Stafford said, pointing at Scruggs. “We were confronted by a gang member, who pulled a gun on us.”

Stafford shot the man and remembers Davis asking more questions than almost anyone else.

“He seemed so relieved that we weren’t killed,” Stafford said. “He seemed so grateful that, as fellow officers and friends, we were spared. He was a big support. I’ll always remember him for it.”

Stafford said he admired Davis for being in remarkable shape--”Slim, very athletic, very clean-cut, neatly trimmed mustache. All-around nice guy and hilariously funny.”

“We used to kid him about that Dutch-boy haircut,” Scruggs said, “and about the fact that he yakked so much. So much seemed to excite him and leave him curious. He was like a kid in a candy store about police work and life in general. He really loved his kids and his wife. And, he was so funny. I still laugh thinking about things he said.”

Stafford said other officers in the station were already talking about the scary work that just got scarier. He, like most of them, finds the job creeping into his sleep.

“Sometimes, I have nightmares of being in gunfights,” Stafford said.

“Or you dream of firing your gun and having your bullets veer off to the side or just fall at the feet of your target,” Scruggs said. “And then you wake up. But, whether you’re dreaming or not, you always believe you’ll end up at home. And Ron believed that more than anyone.”

Home for Davis was a small duplex in north Escondido. He lived there with his wife, Wendy, and two sons, Matt, 4, and Lucas, 18 months.

Tuesday afternoon, relatives and off-duty police officers stood around quietly or sat outside the Davis home. All declined to be interviewed. Neighbors said they hardly knew the family, which moved in a couple of months ago.

Julie Gillman said she didn’t know the Davises, but her daughter, Stephanie, 5, had recently begun playing with Matt.

“It’s been an eerie day,” Gillman said, turning to her daughter and adding, “We’ll have to be really nice to Matt.”

Janna Berg described Ronald W. Davis as “a very gentle man. You could tell that with his kids. It’s a tragedy. He was very good with his kids.”

Berg had to explain to her own 7-year-old son what happened.

“I just told him his little friend’s dad was a policeman, and he was shot and killed by a rotten person,” Berg said.

Stafford and Scruggs said they, too, are married with children, and as bad as it is coping with their own fear and anger and confusion about the job, it’s even worse having to console loved ones.

“Just imagine,” Stafford said. “Ron left home only yesterday. He said, ‘Goodby, honey,’ and kissed his wife as he left the house. He fully expected to see her again, and she fully expected to see him. And then he never came home, which he always thought he would. He had every intention of going there, but he just didn’t make it.”

Times staff writers Mark Platte and Ray Tessler contributed to this report.