Fellow Officers Pause to Reason, Then Carry On

In the wake of Deputy Peter John Aguirre Jr.’s death, police officers across Ventura County are asking themselves this question:

Why are our colleagues dying in the line of duty?

It may be the rise in gun ownership or the drop in society’s respect for police. Maybe it’s just the dicey business of enforcing the law.

But Aguirre’s death pushed Ventura County’s line-of-duty death toll to four since 1993, all young policemen with young families and their careers ahead of them.

And it is causing everyone from street cops to top brass to wonder what they can do to avoid losing more of their own.

All four officers died in gunfire, but other details of the shootings vary widely from one to the next.

* Aguirre was cut down Wednesday in a domestic dispute.

* Oxnard Officer James R. Jensen Jr. was killed by a colleague March 13 in a botched drug raid.

* Simi Valley Officer Michael F. Clark fell Aug. 4, 1995, in a gun battle with a reportedly suicidal man.

* And Oxnard Officer James E. O’Brien was slain Dec. 4, 1993, while chasing a deranged gunman bent on a murderous shooting spree.

Here is what the victims had in common, police officials say:

All spent more time in the classroom, received more detailed training and carried more powerful guns than their predecessors ever did.

As patrol officers, they faced similar risks on the street.

But in the end, Ventura County police officials said, the only common factor in their deaths may be the very reason they chose to become cops: Every single police call is unpredictable.

“What brings officers to this occupation is the constantly changing challenge out there of responding to different situations and trying to bring them to a successful conclusion,” said Simi Valley Police Capt. Richard Wright, a former commander with the Los Angeles Police Department.

“Every situation is unique unto itself,” he said. “You can go on 100 different domestic disputes and be able to resolve each one of them in an appropriate manner. And that 101st one is not going to go down that way.”

From call to call, variables change like tumbling dice--the people involved, the place, the level of intoxication, the family history, the time, the light, the mood.

“There have been numerous studies about the causes” of line-of-duty deaths, Wright said. “Every year, the Department of Justice puts one out that talks about the officers that were killed in the preceding year, what type of weapons were used, the hours of the day, the days of the week--all these kinds of statistical approaches have been used.

“And you know,” he said of the random nature of police deaths, “it doesn’t change a whole lot.”

An average of 150 officers die on duty every year across the United States, according to the American Federation of Police. A slight rise in numbers saw 155 killed in 1993, 169 in 1994 and 172 in 1995.

Armed, trained officers face armed, untrained suspects, and sometimes the cops lose. The element of surprise is often the fatal factor, said Assistant Chief Tom Cady of the Oxnard police.

“It’s just a dangerous business,” Cady said. “The other person oftentimes knows what they’re going to do, and you’re put in a position where you have to react.”

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Sometimes trends dictate changes in training or in equipment. When a rash of cases broke out in which officers were being shot with their own guns, police were taught how to protect their guns and given tougher, theft-resistant holsters, he said.

“You try and minimize [the risk] through training, through equipment, through bulletproof vests, but they don’t replace good common sense,” Cady said. “And they won’t make up for the fact that the crook . . . wants to kill you. When all of a sudden somebody decides to use deadly force on an officer--unless you’re just right on your toes ready to act--you can end up getting killed.”

Morton Feldman runs the American Federation of Police, which keeps track of all U.S. line-of-duty police deaths.

Despite advances in police training and equipment across the country, he said, there is no absolute protection from death in police work.

“It’s like trying to answer the question, ‘What’s the sound of one hand clapping?’ ” said Feldman, who retired as a Dade County, Fla., sheriff’s lieutenant after 30 years of police work.

When it comes to the type of call that kills cops, “there’s no way to fight against it, there’s no way to defend against it, there’s no way to train against it,” he said. “You recognize it, you tuck it away into the back of your head and you bring it forward in a situation that you recognize can cause you harm.”

Officers in Ventura County sometimes get complacent, accustomed to being able to resolve calls by the book and move on to the next one without risk to life, police officials here said. Ventura County’s crime rate is among the lowest in the U.S., and its residents some of the most police-friendly.

But police here are also intensely aware that violence in Ventura County has been rising over the past 20 years, as have aggravating factors such as drug use and gang membership, said Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Kenneth Kipp.

“Things have changed dramatically in the 24 years I’ve been [with the department], and unfortunately I don’t see it getting better,” said Kipp, who commands the sheriff’s patrol division. “The No. 1 problem that we’re forecasting in Ventura County right now is the propensity for and volume of violence among youthful offenders.”

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Officers are no more aggressive than in the past, Kipp said, and they may even be more cautious and apt to think a bit longer before taking action in a dangerous situation.

As to why Aguirre and the others died, Kipp said: “We pray they’re not a trend.”

“We take these things apart analytically, emotionally, and try to profit from them and pass that information on to the folks that are doing the job so they can profit from it. But we just don’t have answers at this point.

“You know, maybe we’ve just been lucky there haven’t been more,” he added. “And maybe, just maybe, all the training we’ve been doing has paid off.”