3 Accused in Officer’s Slaying May Face Death : Courts: Trial begins this week for suspects in robbery spree. Two also have been charged in the killing of a shop owner.

More than two years have passed since Officer John Hoglund’s love affair with law enforcement ended violently outside a Maywood market.

Gunned down as he arrived at the scene of a silent burglar alarm, Hoglund didn’t have a chance to draw his gun. He died inside his patrol car.

Authorities say the slaying was the work of at least three men responsible for an armed robbery spree throughout Los Angeles that included the fatal shooting of Lee Chul Kim, a Van Nuys market owner.

Prosecutors will re-create the killings of Hoglund and Kim for a Los Angeles jury this week when the murder trial is scheduled to begin for Jose Contreras, Benjamin Alberto Navarro and Edgardo Sanchez Fuentes.

With the images of Hoglund’s assailants clearly captured on a security videotape from inside the store, the jurors “will be able to identify the defendants,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Grosbard, one of two prosecutors assigned to the case.

If convicted, all three men, each in his early 20s and from Central America, could face the death penalty in the Hoglund shooting. Fuentes and Contreras could also face death if convicted of killing Kim at his Woodley Market on May 4, 1992.

In that case, Kim, 49, had gone to the bank to make a large withdrawal of cash, which was routine because he operated a check-cashing booth in his store. Prosecutors allege that Fuentes, Contreras and two other robbers were in the store when Kim returned and shot and killed him during a struggle.

“He was hit about a dozen times,” Grosbard said. “It all happened in the freezer of the store, so they were within feet of him.”

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The case began to unfold following the Hoglund shooting less than a month later when San Fernando Valley police noticed similarities between the two killings, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Speer, the other prosecutor. Detectives used the videotape from the Maywood market to get still photos of the suspects, which were used to identify them.

Hoglund, 46, was the first police officer in the history of the Maywood Police Department to be killed in the line of duty. He was shot in the head and chest as he stepped from his patrol car May 29, 1992, investigators said.

“After they shot the cop they turned the gun on an eyewitness who was five feet away, but the gun was out of bullets,” Grosbard said.

Two of the defense attorneys said they do not plan to call their clients to testify during the trial and some said they will try to minimize their clients’ involvement in the murders in hopes of averting a death sentence.

With the prosecution in possession of the store’s security videotape, “the big question is going to be life or death,” said James Coady, a deputy public defender representing Fuentes, Hoglund’s alleged assailant.

“If the prosecution can’t prove that Fuentes is the actual shooter, it could be tough for a jury to come back with the death penalty,” Coady said.

Navarro’s attorney, Eric K. Davis, described his client as the “lookout” during the Maywood robbery, who could not have been involved in the shooting because he fled the scene after he spotted Hoglund.

“He never even saw the police officer get shot,” Davis said.

James P. Leonard, an attorney representing Contreras, said he will acknowledge that his client is “a robber, but not a murderer” during the trial.

“Our position is that he did not kill anyone,” Leonard said.

In addition to murder, the men also face as many as 31 charges stemming from seven robberies of markets and restaurants from Van Nuys to Paramount.

Grosbard said that during the robberies, which started New Year’s Eve, 1991, some of the defendants would strike employees over the head with their guns and use stun guns to persuade other employees to hand over money.

A fourth suspect, Oscar Paredes, who was arrested in March in connection with the Hoglund shooting, is awaiting trial, Grosbard said. Two other suspects remain at large.

The trial is expected to last two months with opening statements scheduled to begin today. Defense attorneys said they plan to introduce testimony relating to their clients, which they hope the jury will consider when deciding their fate.

Navarro was abandoned by his parents as a young child, grew up amid war in El Salvador and came to the United States in the late 1970s, Davis said.

Despite obvious cultural differences, “he is willing to pay for his responsibility,” Davis said. “But he’s in a position where they are trying to exact a price that is too high.”

Said Leonard of Contreras: “I think when the jury hears all the evidence about his life and history, they will see him not in the light of just a robber, but also as a person with redeeming features.”

Fuentes, who like Contreras is from Honduras, was forced to drop out of school in the third grade to peddle newspapers to help support his family, Coady said.