The Associated Press
Pomona, Calif. (AP) -- A 16-year-old youth who authorities said was out to kill any police officer he could find was arrested Thursday for investigation of fatally shooting a California Highway Patrol officer in front of a courthouse.
“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, of Long Beach was shot three times about 3 p.m. Wednesday 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 motive. He said the teen splits his time between residences in Pomona and Fontana. He was arrested in Pomona at 2:50 a.m.
Assemblyman Robert Pacheco, R-Walnut, suggested the shooting was “an initiation of some kind.”
“What a sad time we live in,” Pacheco said during an Assembly debate in Sacramento on a crime victims rights resolution.
“Here is someone who willingly put his life on the line for us, but he didn’t have to die,” said Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy.
The courthouse is in eastern Los Angeles County. Steiner was there to testify in uniform in traffic cases. He died at Pomona Valley Hospital about 7 p.m.
A vehicle fitting the description of the shooter’s car was found in a truck yard near the court building. But it was unclear if it was the car was used by the shooter.
CHP spokesman Tom Marshall in Sacramento said Steiner graduated from the CHP academy in 1999 and was assigned to the CHP’s Santa Fe Springs office. He enforced transportation laws. Steiner was the 201st CHP officer killed in the line of duty, officials said.
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.