Suspected Gang Member Accused of California Officer Slaying
Charles Burress
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (California)



Grieving relatives, colleagues and neighbors remembered slain East Palo Alto police Officer Richard May as a kind and dedicated father and officer.

"This is really shocking for us," said Nate Flint, Sunday watch commander for the 50-officer Lompoc Police Department, where May began his police career and worked for 14 years. "It hit us close to the heart."

May, 38, was gunned down Saturday afternoon after he responded to a report of a fight at a taqueria. A suspect in the fight and in May's slaying, Alberto Alvarez, 23, was arrested early Sunday.

An award-winning officer who especially liked working with youth, May lived with his mother and stepfather, Clarice and Frank Merrill, in Atherton.

For his days off, he commuted to Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County) to be home with his wife, Diana, daughter Lauren, 9, and stepdaughter Brittany Cofield, 17. Another daughter, Deanna, 13, lives with her mother in Redwood City.

Diana May and other relatives gathered at the Merrills' home Sunday.

"We're all together, and that's important," Clarice Merrill said in a voice burdened by sadness. "We have a huge support network. The East Palo Alto Police Department has been very, very supportive. They lost a family member, too."

Merrill called her son "very accomplished."

"He loved his job," she said. "He loved what he was doing. He was really good at what he did. He very much wanted to advance in law enforcement. He wanted to be a sergeant."

Diana Dodos, who lives next door to the May family in Santa Maria with her firefighter husband, said Officer May loved sports and was particularly supportive of his 9-year-old daughter's love of athletics, including her softball team.

"He was a really good man, a great neighbor," said Dodos. "He was always good to everyone. ... He was always there for Lauren. He was a good dad."

Lt. Tom Alipio, investigations commander for the East Palo Alto police, recalled May's commitment to his job and to all people: "He was a very kind person and a very caring officer."

Alipio said May's beat as a patrol officer included a liquor store plagued by a rash of robberies.

"He would not only go out there and be a visible deterrent, he went that extra distance," Alipio said. "He would sit there with the owner. He got to know the owner and his family."

In Lompoc in 1994, May won the coveted H. Thomas Guerry Award for resuscitating a cardiac-arrest patient. Recipients of the annual award are chosen from among all law enforcement officers in Santa Barbara County.

"If you're lucky, you might get that once in your career," Flint said.

In 1997, May received the Distinguished Service Award from the Santa Barbara County Probation Department for his work on juvenile crime, Flint said.

May also ran Lompoc's Police Activities League and taught in the D.A.R.E. program, in which officers take anti-drug and anti-drinking messages to schools.

Born and raised in San Luis Obispo, May joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve after graduating from San Luis Obispo High School in 1985. He was a military police officer from 1985 to 1992. In 1991, on active duty, he was sent to Norway to replace Marines dispatched to Iraq.

A graduate of the Allan Hancock Police Academy, he joined the Lompoc Police Department as a community services officer in 1989 and was promoted to full police officer in two weeks. He was an "agent," equivalent in rank to a corporal, when he left Lompoc in January 2004. He had been with the East Palo Alto department for 20 months.

May earned a degree in criminal justice from Chapman College in 2000, his mother said.

He enjoyed biking, camping and boating and was gifted with electronics and home improvements, his mother said, doing the electrical and heating work for the remodeling of her home.

"He was a great son," she said.

Wow....a Mexican....in a gang...killing cops....why am I not astonished?

. Life is really cheap in the mean streets.

California Officer Shot Dead
MATTHEW B. STANNARD and WYATT BUCHANAN
The San Francisco Chronicle



An East Palo Alto police officer, accompanied by a 14-year-old Explorer Scout on a routine ride-along, was shot to death late Saturday afternoon.

"The Explorer called in on the radio, saying 'Officer down,' " said East Palo Alto police Lt. Rahn Sibley.

Sibley identified the victim as Officer Richard May, 39, who had been on the force for 18 months. Before that, he had spent 10 years with the Lompoc Police Department.

The search for the shooter was still going on seven hours later.

Sibley said the initial call came in at 4:35 p.m. May was responding to a report of a fight at Villa Taqueria at 2380 Cooley Ave., near University Avenue.

When May arrived, the suspect was on foot, heading toward Sacramento Street, Sibley said. May followed in his car as the suspect went down Sacramento. The suspect began to run and tried to get over a fence, but failed. Then, he turned and opened fire on May, who at that point was out of his car, Sibley said.

The teenage scout, who has been with the Explorer program for about a year and has gone out with East Palo Alto police before, was still in the car when the shooting began, and got on the radio, Sibley said.

"It was a horrible situation for a teenager to be in, and he did an excellent, excellent job, keeping his head and giving responding units information," Sibley said.

Late into the night, the armed suspect was still being sought in an intense manhunt by law enforcement officers from all over the Peninsula who had converged on the scene. He was described as a 5-foot-8 Latino man in his 20s, wearing a black jacket, black shirt and blue jeans, about 220 pounds. A $25,000 reward was being offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Several blocks were cordoned off, as police cars, vans, SWAT teams and helicopters searched for the suspect. Some residents were prevented from returning to their homes.

Sibley said May had relatives in Atherton. He lived with his wife in the Santa Barbara County town of Santa Maria, where he went on weekends. He was well educated and an instructor for other police, Sibley said.

"He was a pretty decent fellow," he said.

May had three daughters, one by a former wife and two with his current spouse. His children are ages 9, 14 and 17.

The CHP will fly May's relatives from Lompoc to the area, Sibley said.

Of his fellow officers, Sibley said: "They're hanging in. Everybody's trying to come together."

East Palo Alto has lost one other officer in the line of duty. Officer Joel Michael Davis was killed in June 1988, at a time when the town had far more crime than it does now. In August 2002, a new park was dedicated in his name.

Make gang membership a capital crime.  Pay a bounty for their corpses.  

Quoted: Make gang membership a capital crime.  Pay a bounty for their corpses.

You think collecting gang tattoos could be the next fad?  This could be an easy hobby to get into.  All you need is a knife.

too bad the explorer didn't have a sidearm.

Hang'em high  within a year of conviction

But no, this is CA and the bad guy will grow old in prison before he sees the humane death injection.  

Quoted: too bad the explorer didn't have a sidearm.

Now that is just stupid.

Quoted: Quoted: too bad the explorer didn't have a sidearm. Now that is just stupid.

maybe, maybe not.  I knew some PD Explorers that were given keys to the shotgun, and I knew some PD Explorers that were stupid as rocks that wouldn't know what a key was for if you handed it to them in  the lock.

Then again I also knew some LEOs that were rocks.  

When I was in Navy ROTC at USC, I helped drive my Dad's departments Explorer Post to San Diego, and we stayed at MCRD, visited MCRD, saw graduation, also went out with Customs and toured Customs and Border Patrol facilities at San Ysidro.  Going through the chow line, with the scouts and boots.  Some boot, "the girls with ya?" "yep" "In your platoon?"  "kinda" "how do you get girls and we don't?" "We're Boy Scouts, they let us have girls.  Don't they let you have girls?"  "BOY SCOUTS? BOY SCOUTS have girls? boy did I join the wrong club"

But it's just a job, right?




RIP Brother.

This is a fictional story.....
they banned all guns in The Gay Bay ( San Fran) area.

BUT if real, a mexican we dress like a pinata (pinyata) , see where this is going?

**edited*** forgot to type a few wordsLOL

Quoted: But it's just a job, right? RIP Brother.

Well put.

I'm surprised noboby has blamed the dead officer because he tried to take away the suspects 2nd amendment rights. Or called him a JBT yet.

Humn we should a look beyond the color of the criminals skin.  Im sure your average white man slaughters an officer in a taco shop over some stupid shit like this.

Quoted: Quoted: too bad the explorer didn't have a sidearm. Now that is just stupid.

Because open carry should be illegal for trained teens and young adults?

sad.

What a total waste.

I live about 15 miles away and used to work right down the street from where this happened.  The area is a total shithole and the residents generally have a lack of respect when it comes to the police.  EPA used to be the wildwest back in the mid to late 80's and 90's, top murder rate in the US etc. until they got tough on asshats like the MURDERER they have in custody.  

The COWARD initally shot the officer and left only to come back and EXECUTE him on the street.  The local press keeps saying the MURDERER has previous convictions on drug and GUN related charges (boy our Kaliforniastan gun laws work great huh?) and is currently on parole.   You look at his photo and see nothing but attitude.  The COWARD then tries to wait it out only to get caught by someone trying to drive him from the area.  I think they should charge everyone that helped the MURDERER with accessory to, no questions asked.

To top it off, the pieces of shit in the neighborhood had the balls to destroy the makeshift memorial people had been setting up where he fell.  

my families prayers go out to all effected... RIP

Embrace diversity.  

Perp:

All the calls for punishment are in vain.  I'm sure Vicente Fox's office is already sett8ing up lawyers for the guy.

ban mexicans

Quoted: Quoted: But it's just a job, right? RIP Brother. Well put. I'm surprised noboby has blamed the dead officer because he tried to take away the suspects 2nd amendment rights. Or called him a JBT yet.

That's BS.  Don't knee-jerk.  It sounds like he was chasing a fight suspect.  The weapon wasn't an issue until the dirtbag employed it against the officer.

One of my friend's teachers was the cop's cousin.

It sounds like this officer was really working to try and help the community.

Hang that guy in the desert, televise it, and leave a live feed up while the buzzards have lunch.  Make an example out of him.  

After a trial finds him guilty of course.

Unless he is an illegal.  Then just shoot the sumbeeotch.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: But it's just a job, right? RIP Brother. Well put. I'm surprised noboby has blamed the dead officer because he tried to take away the suspects 2nd amendment rights. Or called him a JBT yet. That's BS.  Don't knee-jerk.  It sounds like he was chasing a fight suspect.  The weapon wasn't an issue until the dirtbag employed it against the officer.

You might want to look behind you because the point I was trying to get across went right over  your head.  

When is this going to end? I'm so fed up with illegal immigrants coming over and killing and raping. Something has to give! This is a horrific end for a truly upstanding man. We are a lesser nation for having lost this officer. This story makes me furious. What is it going to take to get someone to step up to the plate and make the changes our country so desperately needs? How many more men like Officer Richard May have to be murdered?

Quoted: Quoted: Because open carry should be illegal for trained teens and young adults? I thought California has open carry?

In some places, subject to population. I was just wondering why he thought it was "stupid" for an explorer to be armed. Maybe he has another reason other than a phobia of openly carried sidearms? "It's stupid" doesnt really explain his position.

People don't realize how hard it is to get awards like the ones that officer was given. For all my bitching about bad or stupid cops, I know that the standards for mere competence in most departments are so high that a smart, dedicated man can go a whole career without ever being recognized. It sounds like that officer was a hell of a man.