Compton Marks 1st Anniversary of Double Slaying : Mourning: Candelight march honors two officers. Case has still not been brought to trial.

Even before the gunfire erupted Tuesday, leaving another police officer fallen, members of the Compton Police Department were in mourning.

Clerks wore black T-shirts; a few off-duty officers donned black baseball caps. A solemn mood existed throughout the labyrinthine hallways of the brick station house, where police were left comparing the murder of Los Angeles Police Department Officer Christy Hamilton with their own tragedy: the double slaying, exactly a year ago to the day, of two Compton patrolmen who were shot to death, execution-style.

“Now, a year later, LAPD has someone killed,” said Compton Detective Marvin Branscomb. “We don’t want Feb. 22 ever to come again. It’s really traumatic.”

Branscomb, one of the lead investigators in the Compton case, wore a commemorative pin featuring badges of slain Officers Kevin Michael Burrell, 29, and James Wayne MacDonald, 23. They became the first two Compton officers ever murdered in the line of duty after they stopped a red pickup truck late at night at Rosecrans and Dwight avenues.

The murders had a devastating impact on the 66-year-old Police Department. To mark the one-year anniversary of the deaths, officers, friends and family members were expected to stage a candlelight march Tuesday evening from the station house to the site of the slayings about two miles away.

There, they were planning to dedicate a plaque honoring the fallen officers.

“You don’t know how painful it really was--it was a lot of pain,” said Compton Detective Arellanes, a 13-year veteran who was preparing to join the march. “It’s really sad we had to lose those two officers--good men, well liked, dedicated to the job.”

Like others, Arellanes expressed frustration that the only suspect in the case still has not been brought to trial. The case sparked a massive cooperative manhunt involving the FBI, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and numerous other law enforcement agencies.

A $10,000 reward was offered, and police established a 24-hour hot line to take tips from possible witnesses.

Eventually, those efforts led to the surrender of 23-year-old Regis Deon Thomas on April 6.

Thomas, who pleaded not guilty, was bound over for trial at a weeklong preliminary hearing in October, said Branscomb. But it could be several more months before defense attorneys can review evidence they have obtained through legal disclosure procedures, thus clearing the way for trial, Branscomb said.

Now held without bail at Los Angeles County Jail, Thomas faces three murder charges, including the two officers and a third victim, who was shot to death the month before at an apartment house in Torrance.

“We’re going to make sure it’s a capital punishment case,” said Compton Police Lt. Joe Flores, who said the murders fundamentally changed attitudes within the ranks of the officers. “It is, in fact, getting more dangerous,” he said of the job. “Crooks never used to shoot at police officers the way they do now. They’re more brave, more brazen. It’s a reflection on our society, (where) violence is more acceptable. There has to be an end to it.”

While talking about the murders, Flores abruptly stopped and walked away, unable to continue. A little later, he said, “A lot of people want to forget it. They can’t. It’s going to stay with us as long as we wear a Compton uniform.”

Burrell, a 6-foot-7 officer who weighed nearly 300 pounds, had been an Explorer Scout who began working with the department as a teen-ager. MacDonald, a reserve officer who had been recruited two years earlier from Cal State Long Beach, was working his final day in Compton before taking a full-time job with the San Jose Police Department.

Losing them was like losing family members, said Lt. Reggie White, who supervised the investigation.

“It’s almost indescribable,” he said, expressing sympathy with those in Northridge, where Hamilton was killed. “It’s devastating. We’re going to always feel the impact of that.”

Family members of the two officers attended a memorial luncheon for them Tuesday.

Sgt. Eric Perrodin, president of the Compton Police Officers Assn., said the union organized a Valentine’s Day dance a week ago at the Ramada Inn, where about 300 guests helped raise $2,500 toward establishing a scholarship fund in the names of Burrell and MacDonald.

Of Tuesday night’s march, he said, “I started this vigil so the community wouldn’t forget that these two officers gave their lives.”