Friends Say Man Killed by Police Lived Quiet Life

Investigators on Monday identified a 38-year-old man shot to death by police as Robert Paul Rocheleau, an auto mechanic whom friends said lived a quiet, suburban life until Sunday.

Rocheleau’s wife had called Westminster police to their home while the couple was embroiled in an argument. Police allege Rocheleau was drinking before he lunged at officers with a 9-inch kitchen knife.

Craig Ferguson, Rocheleau’s boss and friend, said he saw the mechanic about three hours before the shooting at a water-ski tournament. Rocheleau had attended Sunday’s tournament to cheer on his boss, who was competing.

The mechanic had a few beers, Ferguson said, but didn’t appear drunk.

“I still can’t fathom it,” Ferguson said of the police confrontation that ended with his friend’s death. “That’s just not Bob. That’s not him at all. . . . He’s very trustworthy.”

Fellow workers at the Garden Grove auto shop where Rocheleau worked for six years described him as a jovial, easygoing man. Ferguson said Rocheleau was the only employee he trusted with a key and a security code to the business. The two men often talked about their families and visited each other’s homes.

“He was always on time and would work through lunch or come in and work on his days off if we needed him,” Ferguson said. “He was my top technician, one of the best in my 30 years in the business.”

Rocheleau was convicted of drunk driving in June 1991, according to state Department of Motor Vehicle records.

On Sunday afternoon, police and two neighbors said, Rocheleau appeared to have been drinking. About 5 p.m., Sandy Rocheleau called police.

As officers tried to talk with Robert Rocheleau, his wife went to a neighbor’s home where her daughter was visiting, neighbors said.

Moments later, she heard gunshots and screamed, “They killed him, they killed him,” two neighbors said.

Police Capt. Andrew Hall said two officers opened fired on Rocheleau when the 6-foot-3 man lifted a knife above his head in a threatening manner and turned toward a third officer standing nearby.

“From what we can determine at this point, our opinion is that the officers did not do anything incorrectly,” said Officer Robin Kapp, the department’s spokesman.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating the death, a routine procedure in officer-involved shootings.

On Monday, relatives and friends gathered in the neighborhood where residents baby-sit each other’s children to comfort Sandy Rocheleau, and the couple’s children, ages 12 and 3.

Neighbors described Rocheleau as a hard-working man who “lived for his children.”

Although the mechanic loved his motorcycle, he decided to sell it a few years ago because “he didn’t want to get hurt and not be able to work and support his family,” said a neighbor, who did not want to be identified. Rocheleau used money from the sale for a recreational vehicle for his family, the neighbor said.

The Rocheleaus married about five years ago, neighbors said, and have a 3-year-old boy together and 12-year-old girl from a previous marriage.

He worked as a mechanic specializing in computer-system repairs and smog checks and his wife is a cashier at a local grocery. The couple scheduled work hours so that at least one could be home with the children, friends said.

Ferguson said Robert and Sandy Rocheleau had marital ups-and-downs, but the fights were “normal, like everybody else’s.”

“He would talk to his wife once or twice a day,” Ferguson said. “He would make sure to call her or she would call him.”

Also contributing to this report was correspondent Jeff Kass.