Police Erect New Sign Honoring Slain Officer

Vandals ripped out a street sign memorial to slain Oxnard Police Officer James E. O’Brien who was one of four people killed during a jobless man’s rampage that began at the Oxnard unemployment office four years ago, police said.

Stunned by the brazen act, three top-ranking Oxnard officers wearing suits and ties picked up shovels Thursday afternoon to dig a new hole on Victoria Avenue and plant a new sign anchored in concrete.

“We felt it had to be put back,” said Oxnard Police Cmdr. Chuck Hookstra, who joined Assistant Chief Stan Meyers and Cmdr. Jeff Young in the spontaneous restoration project.

The new sign is about 100 yards from where the old sign had been, but closer to where O’Brien was killed, Hookstra said.

On the roadside next to a strawberry field, the new brown Oxnard Street sign stands in front of an old wooden evidence marker from the day of the shooting and reads J.E. O’Brien 1958-1993.

Family members had heard about the sign’s disappearance from friends and O’Brien’s fellow officers over the last two weeks.

“We were just stunned that someone would do this,” said the fallen officer’s sister, Trish O’Brien. “Why would someone do that? My brother gave his life to protect us in this area. Why would someone do something so mean?”

O’Brien, 35, was shot and killed Dec. 2, 1993, by unemployed computer engineer Alan Winterbourne on Victoria Avenue near Olivas Park Drive.

Winterbourne, frustrated after eight years of searching fruitlessly for a job, shot and killed three people during a one-man siege of the Oxnard unemployment office. He then drove to another unemployment office in Ventura, and en route shot and killed O’Brien, who was trying to stop him.

Soon after killing O’Brien, Winterbourne himself was killed in a barrage of police bullets as he attempted to enter the unemployment office in Ventura.

In the days after the bloodshed, friends and sympathizers fashioned a makeshift memorial for O’Brien at the spot where he was slain. And a few months later, members of the city’s public works department put up a memorial street sign with O’Brien’s name on it.

The sign became a touchstone for the family, Trish O’Brien said. The fallen officer’s mother, his brother and two of his three sisters still live in the area.

At Christmastime, as well as on the anniversary of his death and his birthday, sympathizers still place flowers and ribbons at the spot.

“What’s important about it is that . . . there’s a place that people can see and still remember him,” Trish O’Brien said. “It’s comforting to know that a piece of him is still there.”

Police think the sign disappeared within the last three weeks.

Officials first thought that a county road crew mistakenly removed the sign. The area is actually outside the Oxnard city limits. But Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt telephoned various departments and determined none was involved.

Jovita Magallon, the owner of a fruit stand near the site, said she thinks the deed was done by vandals who have hit her small wooden storefront with graffiti at least four times in the last year.

She said the sign has deep importance for scores of community residents and police supporters.

“I know a lot of people who drive by there every day,” she said. “Before, they put new flowers there all the time. Now it’s mostly holidays, but it’s still important.”

Magallon said she was upset that someone had seen fit to rip out the official memorial.

“Why would someone do that,” Magallon said. “That is like a gravestone. It is where he died. That’s not right.”