Thousands Mourn Slain Lawman

About 5,000 people from across the state gathered at a Lancaster church on Thursday to pay final respects to Stephen Sorensen, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who was shot to death while investigating a trespassing complaint in the remote High Desert area where he lived and patrolled.

As local and state officials, including Gov. Gray Davis, eased into the front rows of Lancaster Baptist Church, uniformed men and women from San Diego to Ventura packed into the remaining pews, stood in aisles and spilled into the courtyard.

“Today, we praise Steve and pay tribute to a fallen hero,” Davis said. “Steve sacrificed his life for a great cause. His cause was righting the wrongs, law against lawlessness, hope against fear.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called the slain deputy “an old soul.”

“When we lose someone as good and kind and decent as Steve Sorensen, it takes away our innocence as human beings,” said an ashen Baca, choking back tears.

Sorensen, 46, whose patrol area covered 150 square miles of High Desert in the Antelope Valley, was killed Saturday in Llano. He is survived by his wife, Christine, and two children.

The chief suspect, Donald Charles Kueck, is at large. After a tip that Kueck was sighted in the Antelope Valley, officers served a search warrant on Thursday morning but did not find him, said Capt. Frank Merriman of the sheriff’s homicide bureau.

Kueck is believed to be armed and dangerous. A $20,000 reward has been offered for his arrest and conviction, Merriman said.

“As a Christian, I don’t understand why it’s the good guys that go,... “ said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. The supervisor said he would introduce a resolution to rename a Lake Los Angeles park as “Steve Sorensen Park.”

The tribute is fitting for a deputy who loved his community, those who knew him said.

When Sorensen joined the Sheriff’s Department in 1991, he was an immediate standout. The former lifeguard and Army veteran graduated first in his class of new recruits. He was soon supervising 400 inmates at a County Jail.

He was later assigned to the Antelope Valley, where he and his wife kept a menagerie of horses, dogs, cats and geese. The deputy would light up whenever his wife and 2-year-old son Matthew dropped by the Lancaster station to visit him, Deputy Wade Young said.

Several speakers recounted how Sorensen cared for his community, on and off duty.

A shopkeeper once saw him hauling a huge amount of groceries to the checkout counter. When the grocer inquired about the quantity, Sorensen said he was buying food for a needy family. Touched, the grocer also decided to help.

Others at the funeral included county supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and city council members from Palmdale and Lancaster.

As a bagpipe played “Amazing Grace” and thousands of officers rose to their feet in salute, the pallbearers carried out Sorensen’s coffin.

“How nice to see all these people come out in support of Steve,” said Sorensen’s supervisor, Capt. Carl H. Deeley. “We haven’t just lost a good cop. We lost a good human being.”