Deputy Is Slain by Gunman

A veteran Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy known as the “town sheriff” was shot to death Saturday while investigating a trespassing complaint in the remote High Desert area where he lived and patrolled.

Authorities are searching for suspects and possible witnesses in the slaying of Deputy Stephen Sorensen, a 12-year veteran, who was responding to a call in Llano near Highway 138, east of Palmdale, said Undersheriff William Stonich.”

As of late Saturday night, no suspects had been identified, said Deputy Johnie Jones, adding that “there’s nobody we have enough evidence on right now to say that’s a suspect.”

Sorensen, 46, was the resident deputy for the Lake Los Angeles area, which is about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, and patrolled several of the far-flung and sparsely populated communities at the edge of the Mojave Desert, Stonich said.

He was a familiar sight to residents.

Cole McCandless, who was born and raised in Lake Los Angeles, had known Sorenson for several years.

“This wasn’t just a job for him. It was something he was really passionate about,” he said. “When everything was safe and OK, he was the happiest-go-lucky guy around. But where there was a problem, he was a real take-charge guy.

“He worried not only about safety but about ways to make the town a better place to live.”

As a resident deputy, Sorensen was responsible for 150 square miles, the Sheriff’s Department said. He was the only full-time deputy but was assisted by volunteer lawmen. Sorensen worked out of his home, like the other five or so resident deputies in sparsely populated areas of the county.

Sheriff’s Capt. Carl Deeley, who works out of the Lancaster station, said it takes a special kind of deputy to be a town sheriff.

“He was the original beat cop. He walked the beat and everybody knew him,” he said.

Saturday morning, Sorensen left word he was going to investigate a trespassing report in nearby Llano.

Shortly after noon, a 911 caller reported hearing half a dozen gunshots. Sorenson’s patrol car was found near a few trailers. Deputies did not find Sorensen but found signs of a struggle, including bloodstains, Stonich said.

Sorenson’s body was found “more than 100 yards away but less than a quarter mile” from his squad car, he said. A written statement released by the sheriff’s information bureau described a “suspect vehicle” seen leaving the scene as a yellow-and-black Dodge Dart. Stonich declined to release more information.

Authorities also declined to say how many times Sorensen was shot or whether his gun was recovered.

Sorensen, an Army veteran, had a long career in law enforcement, including three years as a military policeman, Stonich said.

He had a wife, Christine, an adult son and an adopted child about 3 years old.

Sorensen was a longtime Los Angeles-area resident. He and his family moved to Manhattan Beach in 1968, said Joyce Francisco, who lived next door to them. As she remembers, Sorenson was 11 or 12 at the time.

The Manhattan Beach’s appeal for the Sorenson family, Francisco said, was the clean air. They lived five blocks from the ocean.

“He was the quintessential surfer. He lived to surf,” she said. “His mother was so worried. She used to say, ‘What is going to become of him? How is he going to make a living?’ He would lean his surfboard against the house and hose everything off. He was blond, nice-looking, real all-American-boy-looking.”

But he did find a job. He was a lifeguard.

Sorensen worked as a Los Angeles County lifeguard and emergency medical technician for 12 years, from about 1979 to 1991. He then became a sheriff’s deputy. Before taking the resident deputy assignment three years ago, he held assignments at the Pitchess Detention Center and other county jails, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Despite Sorenson’s love of surfing and the sea, Francisco remembers talking to him and finding out that he was quite taken with his new life in the High Desert.

“He loved the privacy there. He said that if he had his way, he wouldn’t have a neighbor for miles,” Francisco said.

Julie Franks, 34, is Francisco’s daughter. She lives in Saugus and was driving south on Interstate 5 to visit her mom in Manhattan Beach.

“I was driving down there with my children and I saw 15 police cars racing toward the 14 [freeway] and I thought, ‘What’s going on there?’ ” she said.

They were apparently racing to the scene where Sorensen, her former neighbor, had died.

Franks said she wasn’t surprised when she learned that Sorensen had become a deputy: “I thought of him helping people. He was always like that. He was a very, very good guy.”

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Times staff writers Hector Becerra, Cara Mia DiMassa, Steve Hymon and researcher John Jackson contributed to this report.