"It's clear the motive was to kill a police officer but not this specific police officer," Pomona Police Chief James Lewis said. "It's like losing a member of the family."

CHP Officer Thomas J. Steiner, 35, was shot three times Wednesday afternoon while standing in front of the Pomona South Courthouse. The driver of a car stepped out from behind the wheel and opened fire, witnesses told police.

The shooter returned to the car and sped away.

Lewis did not identify the teenager or provide further details about the alleged motive, including whether the youth himself had provided the information.

Steiner was at the courthouse, located in eastern Los Angeles County, to testify in uniform in five traffic cases. He died at Pomona Valley Hospital about four hours after the shooting.

Officials said Steiner, who graduated from the CHP academy in 1999, was the 201st CHP officer killed in the line of duty. He is survived by his parents, a wife, a 3-year-old son and a 13-year-old stepson, said Officer Armando Clemente, a CHP spokesman.

"Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure. "
George W. Bush

"Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and the American Soldier.

One died for your soul; the other for your freedom."

"Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and the American Soldier.

One died for your soul; the other for your freedom."

Death Penalty Debated for California Cop Killer

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

LOS ANGELES  — Officer Isaac Espinoza was the first police officer gunned down in the line of duty in San Francisco in nearly a decade, and police want his accused killer to face the death penalty (search) for the crime.

But the city's new District Attorney Kamala Harris (search) has said no to the death penalty in this case.

"Based on a long and extensive thought and analysis of the death penalty in the state and the city, based on all of those factors that decision has been made," Harris said.

Harris ran for office on an anti-death penalty platform, but police say this is clearly a capital case regardless of her personal beliefs.

"Miss Harris has said she has a moral objection to the death penalty," said Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers' Association (search). "In that case she should step aside and let the attorney general of the state of California take this case."

But Harris and supporters on the city Board of Supervisors point out that death penalty cases take years to go to trial and in liberal San Francisco it is extremely difficult to convince a jury to impose the death penalty.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said a cop killer's punishment shouldn't be based on politics.

"To say even before the case is tried, you're not going to go for the death penalty because quote, San Franciscans don't want it," she said. "Here's one San Franciscan that doesn't feel that way."

"Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure. "
George W. Bush