[jbone]

I didnt see any other place to post this but I felt it was important.

4 California Police Officers Dead, Gunman Killed After Traffic Stop

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510037,00.html

Four Oakland police officers were killed after two shootings Saturday, the first after a routine traffic stop and the second after a massive manhunt ended in gunfire, authorities said. The gunman, who was wanted on a parole violation, was also killed.

"It's in these moments that words are extraordinarily inadequate," said Mayor Ron Dellums at a somber news conference announcing the slayings. It was the first time in the history of the Oakland Police Department that three officers were killed in the line of duty in the same day.

The violence began when two officers on motorcycles stopped a 1995 Buick sedan in east Oakland just after 1 p.m., Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said. The driver opened fire, killing one officer and gravely wounding another.

Click here for photos.

The gunman then fled on foot, police said, leading to an intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies. Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland closed to traffic.

Around 3:30 p.m. officers got an anonymous tip that the gunman was inside a nearby apartment building. A SWAT team entered an apartment to clear and search it when the gunman opened fire, police said. Two members of the SWAT team were killed and a third was grazed by a bullet, police said.

Officers returned fire, killing 26-year-old Lovelle Mixon of Oakland, Acting Oakland police Chief Howard Jordan said.

The slain officers were identified as Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, who was killed at the first shooting. The officers killed at the second location were Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. Officer John Hege, 41, died Sunday after a day in the hospital.

Hege's father, Dr. John S. Hege, a retired physician from neighboring Piedmont, said his son loved being a policeman. He worked well with people and was an Eagle Scout. He played high school football and wrestled. He umpired and coached even as a youth, and joined the Oakland Police Department reserves.

He recently became a motorcyle traffic patrol officer, Dr. Hege said, adding, "He liked excitement."

Photo EssaysDeadly California Traffic Stop
As for the slain shooting suspect, the father said, "The man was evidently terribly desperate. It is a sad story..."

Grieving officers at the police station hugged and consoled each other.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was to arrive in Oakland Sunday afternoon for a private meeting with Dellums and police.

"All four officers dedicated their lives to public safety and selflessly worked to protect the people of Oakland," Schwarzenegger said in a statement released Saturday. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those lost, the Oakland Police Department and law enforcement officers throughout California during this difficult time."

Police said Mixon wielded two different weapons. One gun was used at the first scene and an assault rifle was used at the apartment building where he was hiding.

"[Mixon] was on parole and he had a warrant out for his arrest for violating that parole. And he was on parole for assault with a deadly weapon," said Oakland police Deputy Chief Jeffery Israel.

Police said they did not know why the officers initially stopped the suspect, but said it apparently was a routine traffic stop. Thomason said Mixon had an "extensive criminal history" and was wanted on a no-bail warrant.

People lingered at the scene of the first shooting. About 20 bystanders taunted police.

Tension between police and the community has risen steadily since the fatal shooting of unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant by a transit police officer at an Oakland train station on Jan. 1.

That former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday. Violent protests erupted on the streets of Oakland in the weeks after Grant's death, further inflaming tensions.

Officer deaths are nothing new in Oakland. The memorial wall in the Oakland Police headquarters shows that at least 47 officers died before Saturday. The wall shows the last officer killed in Oakland was in January of 1999.

People left four bouquets of white roses under the granite wall inside the building lobby.

RIP

 

[Bubba FAL]

My heart goes out to the families of the slain LEOs. Casualties of a failed Criminal Justice system.

The antis now have their cause - expect Pelosi & Feinstein to use this to further their agenda. The perp was a violent felon with an "extensive" criminal history, which begs the obvious question - what the hell was this POS doing running free on the streets? And what was he doing with a handgun and rifle - there ought to be a law that a convicted felon he shouldn't be able to purchase a firearm - oh wait, there is one. Silly me, expecting a convicted criminal to obey the law...

 

[borderpatrol]

Mayhem in Oakland, CA

A state where "assault rifles" are banned becomes another statistical outrage. A life long criminal on parole slaughters four police officers using two guns. The second firearm was a "assault rifle" type unknown at this time. God Bless those men who gave their lives and saved us from this CREEP.

How do criminals get "assault rifles" when they are .....banned,........National purchase check,........Governator Arnold says, Nooooo,.........Kalifornia proof? They've got them, that's why WE NEED THEM!

 

[ron169]

Once again, lives are lost by someone that is on Parole. I look at it this way, if the criminal out on Parole takes an innocent life, the folks on the Parole Board should be required to attend the funderal. Start putting things in perspective

 

[rcrandall]

The guy was already a convicted felon and on parole, he was already in violation of several state and federal laws just being in possession of those weapons. If you look at just about all cop killers they have extensive criminal histories and should never have been let out of prison to begin with. Instead, they will blame the guns, not the shithead, try to take away our means of protection, and keep releasing violent criminals into our society. When officers are killed like this it is a damn tragedy, we are just people with families like most other citizens. And when things like this happen a little more of our freedom dies with them.

On another note, I am issued a Colt Commando, it would be easier and much cheaper for me to just carry and train with that weapon. Instead, I carry an LWRC 6.8 which costs me a chunk of change to shoot and keep in duty ammo, and wear and tear on my personal gun. Why? Because of something like this where the extra power may save my life or the life another person. In spite of the smack talk that we all throw around here (me included) I hope to never be in that sort of incident. In 10 years I have been in quite a few critical incidents, one we made entry on a barricaded fugitive armed with a shotgun. It's amazing that you can be that scared and still operate! That one turned out okay.

 

[davej518]

Re: Mayhem in Oakland, CA

A state where "assault rifles" are banned becomes another statistical outrage. A life long criminal on parole slaughters four police officers using two guns. The second firearm was a "assault rifle" type unknown at this time. God Bless those men who gave their lives and saved us from this CREEP.

How do criminals get "assault rifles" when they are .....banned,........National purchase check,........Governator Arnold says, Nooooo,.........Kalifornia proof? They've got them, that's why WE NEED THEM!

My thoughts go out to the friend's and family of the police officers.

The POS can burn.

 

[paulosantos]

RIP to the Officers. Hope that Scumbag rots in hell.

It is sad how the Politicians try to take guns away from the innocent people,yet they fail to realize that the real problem is the scumbags with. The illegal guns. I just can't wait to see the scumbags' family on Tv saying what a great son he was.

 

[Enigmacode]

Rest in Peace brothers...you will not be forgotten.

 

[Bull000]

They also need to mention what type of weapons the SWAT team used to take him down. And they need to mention that he obviously had obtained the weapons illegally. And i would like to know if it really was an "Assault Rifle" or a "Semi Automatic Rifle". There is a difference if i'm not mistaken... And we all know the media won't make that difference clear to the public. Instead they mention how much the community hates the police because they killed an unarmed criminal recently and seem to make it look like it's the local law enforcements fault that this piece of shit decided it was a good day to start shooting cops. I'm worried guys... I just hope rational men like ourselves can get through this and keep this country as what it was founded to do. The media is tearing it apart.

God Bless the men who died in Valor and Honour. Their sacrifice will always be remembered and their names will forever be a beacon of light in the darkness. It's too bad they have to go when there is such evil in the world.

 

[ArtFWTx]

I feel terrible for the officers and their families. I truly am sorry.

Again... another violent offender out on parole and he obtains weapons. The parole board should face a review of policies. And whoever sold the weapons to the POS should be investigated.

 

[BLACK LION]

My sympathies to the family and loved ones left behind.

Men are capable of great things when they are afraid. Especially if they understand that fear is thier friend and utilize it as the survival mechanism it was intended for.

Swat was most likely using MP5s. The thug most likely had an sks, mini-14 or ak type rifle. Wether it was an "assault" rifle or not, who knows. Those entry teams should not be getting chopped up like that. A real bad day with an even worse ending.

 

[rcrandall]

I don't know what kind of weapons Oakland SWAT uses but there has been a large shift from subguns to AR15 type carbines in LE in the last few years. I hope they are one of those teams.

 

[mavericks]

Found this article:

Doomed SWAT sergeants didn't expect an AK-47
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/22/BAV116KEU0.DTL

When Oakland police Sgts. Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai burst into an apartment on 74th Avenue on Saturday, they knew they were entering a dangerous situation. After all, they were looking for a man who had already killed two police officers.

What they didn't know was that the killer, Lovelle Mixon, had somehow gotten hold of an AK-47 assault rifle, police officials say. All they knew was that the gunman who had shot motorcycle officers Sgt. Mark Dunakin and Officer John Hege about two hours earlier used a handgun.

"Nobody knew he had an AK-47," said City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, who was among four council members to join Mayor Ron Dellums and acting Police Chief Howard Jordan for a late-night press conference Saturday.

The bulletproof vests that Romans and Sakai wore were no help - when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head.

The killings of four officers would devastate any police department. But it was especially traumatic for an Oakland force that has been beefed up in recent years with a lot of young, inexperienced cops.

"We've got a really young force out there, and this is really hitting them hard," officer Bob Valladon, former head of the Oakland Police Officers Association, said Sunday as he drove from one slain officer's home to another to meet with their families. "We've hired maybe 25o new cops in the past five years, so about a quarter of the force has never seen anything like this. No one has.

"These cops (who were killed) were veterans," Valladon said. "The best of the best."

Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, current head of the Police Officers Association, said the killings bring to the surface something that runs through the undercurrent of any police station.

"Every day you go in. You look around," Arotzarena said, and "you know (there's a possibility) that someone is going to get killed. You don't know who. You don't know how. You don't know when. But you know it is going to happen to someone.

"That's just the reality of being a cop these days."

And there's another undercurrent to the cops' reaction, more particular to Oakland - some officers say they'll be looking to see whether the outrage over these killings approaches the level heard from politicians, officials and community leaders when BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant at Oakland's Fruitvale Station

 

[new orleans]

My sympathy goes out to the families and friends of the slain officers. May they RIP.

 

[Raph]

AK-47 assault rifle
- when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head.

Is this accurate, or typical media misuse of terms? Was it a semi-auto, or full auto?... Either way its sad, but I'm so sick of media misusing terms for shock value...

 

[joshuades]

AK-47 assault rifle
- when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head.

Is this accurate, or typical media misuse of terms? Was it a semi-auto, or full auto?... Either way its sad, but I'm so sick of media misusing terms for shock value...

My assumption is it was a semi-auto rifle. Otherwise, the media would have made a comment on "illegally modified" or something along that lines. I've yet to see the rifle in question in photo so as to see what it was exactly, so I've had to pull some deductive reasoning.

In the context of this situation, the point is moot, as the suspect should not have had any weapon in the first place, parolee or not (since if I recall correctly, you are stripped of the right to bear arms if you're convicted of a violent crime, for example: armed robbery).