By Henry K. Lee
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN LEANDRO — The brother of a slain San Leandro police officer condemned the killer in court before he was sentenced to death Friday, calling him a “cop-killing murderer” for shooting the officer in 2005 to avoid going to jail for having drugs and guns in his possession.
Irving Ramirez, 25, showed no reaction as Officer Nels “Dan” Niemi’s brother, Jim Niemi, castigated him in a packed Oakland courtroom, nor when Superior Court Judge Jon Rolefson followed the earlier jury decision and formally sentenced him to die by lethal injection.
“Our pain and loss is of such magnitude that what I say today will never encapsulate our feelings,” Niemi said. “I just don’t know how someone can stand over another human being and fire shot after shot until he’s dead. And for what? So to not go to jail for 30 days?”
Ramirez shook his head when the judge asked if he wanted to say anything. Ramirez is the first person to be sent to Death Row in Alameda County for killing a police officer since capital punishment was reinstated in California in the 1970s. He was tried by Alameda County’s top prosecutor, District Attorney Tom Orloff.
A jury convicted Ramirez on May 10 of first-degree murder for killing Niemi. The panel also found Ramirez guilty of enhancements for firing a weapon and special circumstances of killing a police officer and killing to avoid arrest.
Outside court, Niemi’s widow, Dionne Niemi, said she was heartened that the jury opted for the death penalty and sent a message that “in this situation, we’re not going to tolerate this.”
“That gives me peace. If we got anything less, we would have been cheated,” she said.
She said that now she’ll do her best to “just live life. Dan would not want me sitting around and wasting away.”
One of Ramirez’s attorneys, Deborah Levy, tried unsuccessfully Friday to urge the judge to sentence her client to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the hearing, Levy said, “This is such a tragedy all the way around. I just think the death of Irving isn’t going to make it any easier. I feel terrible.”
Previous defendants convicted of killing law-enforcement officers in Alameda County have received lengthy or life-in-prison sentences as a result of jury verdicts or deals with prosecutors. In one case, a defendant was acquitted.
Niemi was a three-year veteran of the force when he was shot to death July 25, 2005, near Doolittle Drive and Belvedere Avenue. He was the first San Leandro officer killed in the line of duty in nearly 40 years.
Ramirez, whose street name is “Gotti,” killed Niemi to prevent the officer from discovering that he was carrying two guns and drugs, Orloff told jurors during the trial. Ramirez had recently been released from jail for violating his probation after a Pleasanton police officer found drugs in his pocket, the prosecutor said.
Ramirez shot Niemi once in the head with a 10mm semiautomatic handgun, then fired six more shots as the officer was on the ground, the jury found. Officers found Ramirez’s identification near Niemi, authorities said.
Copyright 2007 Hearst Communications, Inc.