Carpenter Wants Killer of Officer Executed

The day after a sheriff’s deputy was slain while intervening in a domestic dispute near Ojai, Sheriff Larry Carpenter said he will ask prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the alleged killer--a repeat criminal who ran naked from his house firing at officers with two semiautomatic handguns.

“I want the death penalty,” Carpenter said, after praising rookie patrol officer Peter John Aguirre Jr., 26, a former religious studies student who died Wednesday evening, an hour after Michael Raymond Johnson, 48, is suspected of gunning him down.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said prosecutors will file first-degree murder charges with a special circumstance, which allows him to seek the death penalty if he chooses. That decision will not be made until Bradbury has fully analyzed the case, including the suspect’s criminal history.

As the Sheriff’s Department reeled in the aftermath of Aguirre’s death and set up a scholarship fund for his 3-year-old daughter, his family and friends began to plan for yet another funeral for a Ventura County law enforcement officer.

Aguirre was the fourth officer killed in the line of duty since 1993.

Oxnard Police Officer James Jensen Jr. was accidentally killed by another officer in March. Simi Valley patrolman Michael Clark was fatally wounded when he approached the home of a distraught substitute teacher last year. And Oxnard Officer James O’Brien was gunned down by an out-of-work computer engineer on a deadly rampage that killed four in 1993.

Carpenter would not detail Johnson’s criminal history, citing a state law that prohibits such disclosures by police. But sources said that the suspect was first convicted 28 years ago and that he has been sentenced to state and federal prisons for narcotics sales, burglary, armed robbery and use of a firearm after committing crimes in at least three states.

In 1987, he was sentenced to nearly six years in state prison for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in Santa Monica, a burglary in Van Nuys and the burglary of an Ojai hardware store, records show.

Sources said Johnson’s first conviction was for a 1968 theft in Georgia. He was arrested on drug charges in East St. Louis, Ill., in 1973. A 1974 conviction for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine resulted in a three-year sentence that began at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill., considered one of the toughest in the nation, a source said.

His record also includes an arrest on drug charges in Las Vegas and an arrest for receiving stolen property in San Diego, both in 1985, sources said.

Prosecutors said Johnson, who was shot in the rib cage by a deputy before being arrested outside the Meiners Oaks house he sometimes shared with his estranged wife, is scheduled for arraignment today. He remained in intensive care at Ventura County Medical Center on Thursday, but was in fair condition.

Carpenter said there was no indication that Johnson, a recovering alcoholic, was intoxicated by drugs or alcohol when he allegedly shot Aguirre three times in the head and shoulder. The officer had just stepped inside Johnson’s small house after responding to a complaint of a man holding his wife hostage with a gun.

Johnson, who was showering when four deputies arrived, then ran nude from the house--firing eight to 12 rounds at officers as he fled, Carpenter said. Deputy Jim Freyhoff, ducking behind a tree, returned fire, shooting Johnson once in his rib cage, Carpenter said.

News that Johnson is accused of engaging in a gun battle with peace officers surprised people who have worked with him at drug and alcohol centers in the last year; they said he has attempted to turn his life around and become a professional drug counselor.

Johnson had excelled as a student in drug counseling classes at Oxnard College in 1994, and had worked at two drug and rehabilitation centers as a volunteer counselor since then--a Salvation Army center in Carpinteria and as a resident manager at Tiber House in east Ventura for the Turning Point Foundation.

Bob Holts, director of rehabilitation at the Salvation Army center, called Johnson one of the best interns he had ever worked with.

“The quality of his counseling was extremely good,” Holts said. “I am sitting here hoping and praying that there has been some sort of macabre misidentification.”

But Carpenter told reporters at a news conference Thursday afternoon that there is no doubt who killed Aguirre, a rookie patrol officer he described as one of his department’s most promising.

“He was a good deputy, very well thought of . . . and very, very sincere about helping those who were not as fortunate,” he said.

Aguirre had considered becoming a priest and wanted to be a teacher, but went into law enforcement instead, Carpenter said. “He decided he could be of more assistance in the law enforcement field,” he said. But some relatives worried because of the current “craziness on the streets.”

Aguirre joined the Sheriff’s Department in April 1994 and worked in jail services until January, when he was transferred to patrol duties in bucolic Ojai. After a four-month training period, he became a full-fledged patrol officer about three months ago.

On Wednesday, he and his partner responded to a domestic disturbance.

“Those are some of the most dangerous things you’ll go to, and unfortunately that has been proven once again,” said Rodney Thompson, a sergeant in the small Ojai substation where Aguirre worked. “He was a good troop.”

Aguirre was one of four deputies in two cruisers who responded when Johnson’s stepdaughter called for help about 5:25 p.m. on behalf of her mother, Carpenter said. The stepdaughter, whom Carpenter did not identify, was at another location and apparently had been called by her mother, he said.

According to a woman who identified herself as Guillermina Johnson’s 17-year-old daughter, Michael Johnson and her mother had been together off and on for years.

“He’s known my mom for a long time, and he’s always been pretty good to her,” said the daughter, waiting as her mother picked up clothes at the North Encinal Avenue house Thursday morning.

The daughter, who refused to give her name, said Johnson was planning to go to college starting next month. “He wanted to write, you know, become a screenwriter,” she said.

The Johnson home, where Carpenter said Johnson’s wife had lived for about two years, had been the subject of other calls for police service, the sheriff said. He said he did not know the details of the disturbances. Johnson had returned home most recently about three weeks ago, Carpenter said.

According to friends and co-workers, Johnson had left his job at an east Ventura halfway house to spend more time with his estranged wife.

“He was giving it a second try,” said Warren Gauvin, the counselor in charge of Tiber House, where Johnson worked as an unpaid resident manager in exchange for free rent for about a year. A qualification for becoming a volunteer counselor was that Johnson had to be a recovering substance abuser. Gauvin said Johnson was an alcoholic.

Gauvin said Tiber House’s five male residents were undergoing counseling Thursday afternoon to deal with the news that Johnson had been connected to the shooting.

“None of us can believe that this could possibly be the same person,” Gauvin said. “We cannot imagine what could have happened to him in three weeks. He wanted nothing more than to be the model citizen.”

“It was our opinion that Michael had progressed to the point where he could assist others,” said Clyde Reynolds, executive director of Turning Point, the nonprofit organization that helps the homeless and recovering drug and alcohol addicts. “The clients looked up to and respected him a great deal.”

Before going to work for Turning Point, Johnson completed an alcohol and drug studies program at Oxnard College in 1994, said program coordinator William Shilley.

“He was rather a quiet person,” said Shilley, who taught Johnson and said he received mostly A’s.

Shilley said that although he did not know Johnson very well, he was stunned by the news of the shooting.

“What a shame for everybody,” Shilley said. “It certainly didn’t seem like Michael.”

Kelley is a Times staff writer and Hadly is a correspondent. Staff writer Mack Reed and correspondent Eric Wahlgren contributed to this story.