Prosecutor Says Killer of Deputy Acted Like a Sniper

“Like a sniper in ambush,” Michael Raymond Johnson lay in wait to shoot it out with police the day he killed Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Aguirre Jr., prosecutors said Tuesday.

During his closing arguments, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew Hardy said Johnson killed in cold blood and with premeditation.

“This is as cold as it gets,” Hardy said.

Recounting what jurors heard during the trial, Hardy held up the .32-caliber and the .45-caliber handguns used in the shooting and acted out what he said Johnson did. He stood behind a podium as if he were the defendant hiding in a hallway of the home in which the shooting occurred.

Then, leveling one of his arms as if he were firing, he bellowed:

“Bang! Into the table.”

“Bang! Into the arm. Then bang, into the head.”

Hardy walked over to a picture of the bloody corner where the wounded Aguirre fell onto his side, bent over with the handgun and mimicked what he called an execution-style final blast:

“Bang! Into the head.”

Aguirre never had a chance to pull his gun out of his holster, Hardy said. Johnson had surprised him “like a sniper in ambush.”

“Why did he do that?” Hardy asked the jurors. “Because long ago he had decided . . . he made the decision that he was going to kill any cop that got in his way. . . . He made a lifetime of decisions that lead up to the killing of Pete Aguirre.”

Hardy spent almost four hours in a methodical rundown of the charges against Johnson.

Defense attorneys are expected to present their closing arguments today.

Defense attorneys do not dispute that Johnson killed the deputy, but have said that the evidence does not support the prosecution’s theory that their client is guilty of first-degree murder.

In a recorded statement Johnson made to a doctor the evening after the shooting, Johnson said he was “just reacting to a situation and I shot him. I think this afternoon was a passive suicide attempt.”

Throughout the trial the defense has presented testimony that Johnson did not have time for premeditation before shooting Aguirre and that the deputy did not follow proper police procedures in entering the home.

But to a courtroom filled with spectators Tuesday--including Aguirre’s parents and his widow--Hardy rebutted those arguments, saying that Aguirre had acted heroically when he responded to the July 17, 1996, domestic disturbance call.

“Peter Aguirre was a lawman. He knows as a lawman it is his job to put his body between harm and citizens,” Hardy said while Aguirre’s parents quietly wept.

“Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that Peter Aguirre was a screw-up. He did it right,” Hardy said.

Aguirre went to the home “with his arms and his heart open to help,” Hardy said. “And he got a bullet in his head for thanks.’

The defense’s suggestions that Aguirre made mistakes go to the core of one of the special circumstance charges--the charge of killing a peace officer in the performance of his duties. That allegation paired with a murder conviction would make Johnson, a five-time felon, eligible for the death penalty.

The other special circumstance charge is kidnapping, for allegedly taking his estranged wife against her will to a remote spot along California 33, where he allegedly raped her. Johnson also faces charges that he attempted to kill another deputy that day.