San Gabriel Valley : DEATH PENALTY STAND
Under intense pressure from a community still mourning the murder of Police Agent Louis Pompei, the Glendora City Council reversed itself Tuesday and supported lowering the minimum death-penalty age to 15.
“Every day when we pick up a paper we read about youth pulling the trigger,” said Mayor Larry Glenn.
The mayor and his colleagues voted unanimously to call on state lawmakers to lower the age at which felons can be given a death sentence to 15 from 18, if a first-degree murder is committed in the course of a serious felony.
Only last month a similar resolution was rejected by the council. But several emotional pleas from residents brought a change of heart.
Many residents who spoke wore blue ribbons in memory of Pompei, who was shot to death June 9 when he tried to stop a supermarket robbery in San Dimas. Two teen-agers have been charged with his murder.
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