Man Convicted of Killing Officer

A jury moved Tuesday to close the book on one of Orange County’s bloodiest murder cases, convicting a man of a 1980 bar shooting that left a Garden Grove police officer dead and four people wounded.

John George Brown’s retrial lasted less than a month but was the latest chapter in a 20-year legal odyssey that had frustrated the Garden Grove Police Department and the officer’s family and friends.

“Certainly this was a very sad event they had to live through again,” Garden Grove Police Capt. Dave Abrecht said of the officers involved in the arrest attempt that ended in a hail of .22-caliber bullets.

The widow and niece of slain Officer Donald Reed wept quietly as the court clerk read the verdict. His parents, Keith and Rita Reed, stared at the back of Brown’s head.

Brown, 51, who spent 15 years on death row after his 1982 conviction, sat in a wheelchair, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. He is in ill health, his attorneys said, but they would not elaborate.

Authorities said Brown shot and killed 27-year-old Reed while he and three fellow officers tried to arrest Brown on drug and assault warrants in a bar on Garden Grove Boulevard. Two officers and two customers also were wounded.

The California Supreme Court in 1998 ordered a new trial or a reduced finding of second-degree murder because potentially mitigating evidence was not introduced in the original trial.

During the retrial, victims recounted the horrific scene at the Cripple Creek Salon as Brown opened fire with a pistol that he had hidden in his jacket.

Paul McInerny, now a sergeant with the Garden Grove Police Department, testified that Brown at first appeared to be cooperating, but as Brown and the officers were leaving the bar, McInerny heard what he thought were firecrackers. He then saw Reed lying fatally wounded outside the door.

Police found Brown two hours later, hiding in a bush near the bar. He was convicted in 1982 and sent to death row. But at issue during his appeal was a blood test performed by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that showed that Brown may have taken PCP, a hallucinogenic drug. The test result was never forwarded to Brown’s defense attorneys. The Supreme Court ruled that the test could have swayed jurors into believing that the murder was not premeditated.

The jury now will decide whether Brown should face the death penalty. The penalty phase is set to begin Monday.