Slain Officer Followed His Life’s Calling : Heroism: Thomas Worley, angered ‘when defenseless people are victimized,’ died in shootout with robber.

Pam Worley was in line to pay at the register of the Payless ShoeSource when ex-convict Jesus Valenzuela burst into the discount store brandishing a handgun.

As the clerks handed over the bills, she crawled outside to her husband, off-duty Los Angeles County Safety Police Officer Thomas Worley, who was in the crowded parking lot of the strip mall at Topanga Canyon and Roscoe boulevards.

She told her husband the store was being robbed. He grabbed his badge. Worley confronted Valenzuela, the two exchanged gunfire and 90 minutes later, both were dead.

Those who knew him said Thursday that Worley--who believed police work was a calling, more than just a profession--was acting in character.

“That’s the way he wanted to go, if he was going to go,” said Jeff Smolek, a relative. “He did just what any officer would do.”

Worley was the 11th peace officer to be gunned down in the last year and a half in Southern California. And as police, family and friends grappled with the shock of events, there was widespread praise for Worley’s valor.

“The funeral has not been set, but we hope to have a full-blown police funeral for Officer Worley because we look at him as a hero,” said Clifton Williams, president of the 400-member Los Angeles County Safety Police Assn.

“He gave his life,” Williams said. “Sometimes we don’t know why the world is like it is. But we had an officer who cared.”

Worley, according to family and friends, was living a dream. He had always wanted to be a police officer.

After graduating from Agoura High School, he spent seven years as a policeman in the Air Force, rising to the rank of staff sergeant. When he got out, he worked as a private security officer.

In June, 1993, he was accepted into the Safety Police, the sworn officers who provide armed security for county facilities, including 59 hospitals and clinics.

On his application form, according to Williams, Worley wrote: “I like helping people, and I don’t like when innocent or defenseless people are victimized. I feel drawn to law enforcement because of this. I also believe in ‘callings.’ A calling to religious service or medicine. I feel a ‘call’ to law enforcement.”

In February, Worley graduated from the Rio Hondo police academy in Whittier. He was assigned to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where he worked the evening shift.

Hours before the shooting, Worley, 33, filled out an application for a deputy’s position with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, friends said. He also picked up a new swing set for his two children--Christina, 6, and Matthew, 2--and helped a friend fix a water heater.

“That’s just the kind of guy he was,” said the friend, Wayne Carlin, 34. “I didn’t need any help with that water heater. But he said, ‘No, come on, let me help. . . . ‘ “

Worley was also a hands-on dad, said family and friends.

“You never saw Tom standing when the kids were here,” said Anita Jacquin, Pam Worley’s mother. “He’d always be on the ground, playing with them.”

Matthew spent Wednesday with his maternal grandparents; Christina was at Disneyland with her father’s parents.

As evening fell, Worley picked up his wife from work. To prepare for a full night of Christmas shopping, she asked him to stop at Payless so she could buy a pair of comfortable shoes.

“I can’t believe it,” she said Thursday at her mother’s Canoga Park apartment. “Just to get a pair of shoes, just to wear for a couple of hours.”

As Pam Worley, 29, waited in line about 6:15 p.m. at the cash register, a clerk bent down to pick something up from beneath the counter.

It was then that Jesus Mario Valenzuela, 44, of Canoga Park walked up and pointed a gun.

Pam Worley said she ducked down onto all fours and crawled outside to her husband, who was in the parking lot. “I whispered to him that there was a man with a gun,” she said.

Thomas Worley was carrying his gun, a 9-millimeter Beretta, but dashed to their car to grab his badge, she said.

She heard her husband identify himself as an officer. Then Valenzuela fired three shots from his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police said. “One of the rounds struck the badge in Tom’s hand,” Williams said.

Another hit Worley in the chest. A third hit his groin.

“However, Tom had the presence of mind to return fire,” Williams said. The bullets struck Valenzuela in the chest and the stomach.

Worley “was an excellent marksman,” his father, Robert Worley, said Thursday. “He prided himself on it. He proved it (Wednesday) night.”

Thomas Worley was not wearing a bulletproof vest. A firefighter performed CPR on the scene, and Worley was taken to Nu-Med Regional Center, less than a block away, where he was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m., according to Daryl Meeks, assistant chief of the Safety Police.

“I didn’t expect any of this at all,” Pam Worley said. Her husband, she said, “ran into a lot of bad stuff” at County-USC Hospital, but wore a safety vest there.

As a sworn police officer, Worley was authorized to carry a gun off duty, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

And though the parking lot was filled with shoppers, police said the decision to return fire appeared reasonable. No one else in the parking lot was hurt.

“Witnesses say the robber fired first,” said Lt. Al Moen, the LAPD homicide detective overseeing the investigation. He said that Worley’s returning the shots appeared to be justified.

An internal Safety Police investigation into the shootings is also underway, Meeks said Thursday.

Valenzuela did not appear initially to be badly hurt, witnesses said. But he died at 7:17 p.m. at Northridge Hospital Medical Center from internal bleeding. A bullet had pierced his liver.

Valenzuela, who would have turned 45 on Christmas Day, had three prior robbery convictions and was a veteran of state prison, according to officials at the state Department of Corrections.

Officers recovered $350 from Valenzuela, but it was not clear Thursday how much of that was taken from the shoe store, Moen said.

“If you only wanted to know one person in your life,” said Carlin, Worley’s friend, “Tom was the sort of person you’d want to know.”

Police announced the creation of a fund for the two children Thursday. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to LAC-USC Foundation, Thomas Worley Fund, 1200 N. State St., Room 1112, Los Angeles 90033.

Times staff writers Chip Johnson and Jeannette Regalado contributed to this story.