$6,500 in Donations for Family of Slain Officer Stolen From Car : Theft: Briefcase with money from fund-raiser is taken from union president’s vehicle. It was parked at the Hall of Administration while he ran an errand there.

A thief who broke into a car parked Christmas Eve at the Hall of Administration lot made off with about $6,500 that had just been donated to the family of slain Los Angeles County Safety Police Officer Thomas B. Worley, authorities said Tuesday.

The money, raised at a dinner dance the night before, was in a briefcase belonging to Clifton Williams, president of the 400-member Safety Police Assn., who had stopped at the county office building Saturday afternoon to run an errand.

Fifteen minutes later, he came back to his car in the lot under the building to find a window shattered and the briefcase gone. “It kind of sets us back and it hurts,” Williams said Tuesday.

Worley, 33, was shot last Wednesday in the crowded parking lot of a Canoga Park strip mall after confronting Jesus Valenzuela, 44, who witnesses said had just held up a discount shoe store in the mall.

After Worley identified himself as a police officer, investigators said, Valenzuela shot at him. Worley returned fire.

Worley, who was off duty and not wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot in the chest and groin and died about 90 minutes later. Valenzuela, an ex-convict with three prior robbery convictions, was hit in the liver and died within the hour from internal bleeding.

Last Friday, friends and family held a dance to raise funds for Worley’s wife, Pam, 29, and two children, Christina, 6, and Matthew, 2, Williams said.

The event netted $3,600 in savings bonds, some $2,000 in checks and at least $900 in cash, Williams said. The cash estimate, he said, was low because “a lot of those envelopes hadn’t even been opened yet.”

The next day, the union chief said, he stopped at the county building about 3:45 p.m. to drop off a set of keys. He returned to his 1990 Ford Mustang to discover his briefcase--with the cash, checks and bonds inside--gone.

Also stolen were a pager and a cellular phone, said Los Angeles Police Detective Connie Gordon.

Detectives have no leads, Gordon said. Police know only that the thief--or thieves--used the porcelain chip from an auto spark plug to shatter the window because the chip was found inside the car, Gordon said.

The spark-plug chip is an increasingly popular tool for auto thieves because it will fracture a window but make little noise and often not even disturb a car alarm, the detective said.

“These low-down no-goodniks, they break into his car and to top it off, they take the money for the officer’s wife and the kids--they have no regard for this family or those kids,” Gordon said. “These are rank opportunists. Or at least one opportunist.”

Arrangements for Worley’s funeral and burial, meanwhile, were announced Monday. Services will be held Thursday morning at First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica. Burial will follow at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth.