Accused Grappling With Officer’s Death : Tragedy: ‘I’ve got a broken heart,’ says Marco Villegas Ramirez, 51, who is pleading not guilty in the crash that killed La Habra policeman.

Marco Villegas Ramirez sat behind a plexiglass window in a jail visiting room Friday wondering how in his middle age he could be caught up in a tragedy that threatens to wreck his life.

With shoulders bent and head bowed, and his eyes frequently filling with tears, Ramirez, 51, talked about how it feels to be accused of killing a young police officer.

“I’ve got a broken heart, a break in my soul,” he said. “My mind is marked with this tragedy. . . . I would ask his family for forgiveness for all the pain I caused them involuntarily. I’d ask them for compassion.”

Ramirez is accused of being drunk when he allegedly ran a red light on Halloween and smashed into La Habra Police Officer Michael Osornio’s cruiser, pinning Osornio inside. Osornio, 26, died an hour after the collision.

Osornio had joined the department 14 months ago after putting himself through the police academy and was recently engaged to be married to his high school sweetheart. He is the first La Habra officer to be killed on duty.

Ramirez, a La Mirada sheet-metal worker and father of three, was by all accounts a quiet, hard-working man who acquaintances say often warned against drinking and driving. Family members say he never drank to excess. His colleagues say he never joined them for drinks after work.

Now he faces a four- to 10-year prison sentence if convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty Thursday and is being held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

Ramirez said he cannot remember the accident, how he got into the car, where he was going or why.

“The police said that this thing happened. What can I say?” Ramirez said. “My mind doesn’t hold this. It has disconnected from the reality. Maybe for others this thing would be nothing, but for me, it’s too much.”

“Sometimes you might have a fight with a friend and you do or say something you regret,” said Ramirez, choking back tears. “But when something happens where you didn’t have any intention . . . where you didn’t even know the person and the person represents the law . . . I respect the law.”

Police said his Buick station wagon was traveling 60 m.p.h., weaving and bouncing off a curb, when it broadsided Osornio’s cruiser at the intersection of Beach and La Habra boulevards. Authorities said Ramirez’s blood-alcohol level later registered at .18, more than twice the legal limit of .08.

Ramirez, a legal immigrant from Mexico, said he has received support from friends and family. His wife and two of his sons, ages 25 and 22, are living in Hidalgo, Mexico. A third son, 18, recently visited him at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he had been recovering from the accident.

Co-workers at Lindblade Metalworks Inc., where he has worked for the past four years, said that in recent months Ramirez had been beset by personal problems. Ramirez had told colleagues he had been evicted from a Monterey Park apartment about six months ago because of problems with his son’s friends, who were considered troublemakers by the landlord. Since then, Ramirez had been sleeping on a couch in a vacant office at the company.

Ramirez said any problems he has had in the past are nothing compared to the problems he faces now. If he is released someday from custody, Ramirez said, he plans to go back to work, back to earning money for his family.

Asked what message he would convey to others from his jail cell, he said, “I recommend with all my soul, with all my heart--never drink and drive.”