IT IS A GOOD THING COP-KILLING PAROLEE WAS KILED NOW THAT GOV. NEWSOM IS DETERMINED TO END CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Oakland police honor four officers killed on duty 10 years ago

By Megan Cassidy

San Francisco Chronicle
March 21, 2019

A decade after four Oakland police officers were fatally gunned down in a single day, the horror of March 21, 2009, still burns in the memories of the fallen officers’ family in blue, as well as their loved ones and the community they sacrificed their lives to protect.

Acting Deputy Chief Roland Holmgren, then a member of the SWAT team, remembers racing to the scene following a call that two officers were shot during a routine traffic stop. The second broadcast came as he arrived: two more officers were down.

The fallen — Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Officer John Hege, Sgt. Ervin Romans and Sgt. Daniel Sakai — were honored by surviving family, current officers and supporters Thursday, which marked the 10-year anniversary of their deaths.

About 200 people paid their respects at a morning Mass at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Oakland. Police officers, outfitted in crisp navy blues, hugged and mingled alongside the victims’ families and the families of other fallen officers.

“This is really a day all about remembrance,” Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said, noting that few departments in the country have experienced such a high death toll in a single day. “It’s tragic, but we’re really here to love on each other right now.”

On that afternoon a decade ago, 26-year-old wanted parolee Lovelle Mixon opened fire on Dunakin, 40, and Hege, 41, after they pulled him over during a traffic stop at 74th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard. A SWAT team stormed the apartment where Mixon was hiding about two hours later and Mixon opened fire with an assault rifle, killing Romans, 43, and Sakai, 35.

Mixon was later shot to death by police.

Mayor Libby Schaaf, who at the time worked as an analyst for Oakland’s city council, recalls how the air was “taken out of the lungs” of City Hall.

Schaaf recalled the first person she spoke to that day who knew all of the officers.

“And all she could keep saying to me over and over was, ‘They were the best of the best,’” Schaaf said.

The mayor remembered feeling slightly embarrassed that day, sitting in her office, thinking about how her public servant gripes seemed so trivial in comparison.

“Now these officers gave the ultimate sacrifice,” Schaaf said.

Holmgren, a 20-year veteran of the department, knew each officer and worked closely with Romans and Sakai on the SWAT team.

Since their deaths, he said, Romans and Sakai’s families have become intertwined with his own, and their children have grown up together.

“It really hits home when you come back 10 years later,” Holmgren said, adding that Sakai’s little girl is “not so little anymore.”

The acting deputy chief smiled as he remembered his brothers.

Romans, a former marine, always sported a close-cut haircut, and was very “by the book,” Holmgren said. He was regimented and stern in his role as a firearms instructor.

Sakai, a graduate of UC Berkeley, had the “warmest of hearts.”

Dunakin was a “big, gentle giant” with a contagious smile and Hege “would always be there when you need him, any time of day,” Holmgren said.

The department tries to support the officers’ families, especially during milestones and holidays, when the void can be especially painful.

“That’s our obligation to them,” Holmgren said. “If we call ourselves a family, it’s more than just a date. ... It’s that we’re there for them when they lose their first tooth, or graduate from high school or have their first boyfriend.”

The support network for families of surviving officers extends beyond the department, said Will and Mary Ann Tonn, whose son, Kevin Tonn, was killed in the line of duty in 2013 while serving with the Galt Police Department just south of Sacramento.

The parents paid their respects to the Oakland officers Thursday morning — Will wore a miniature replica of his son’s badge as a pin, and Mary Ann donned hers as a necklace.

Since their son’s death, the couple said, they’ve gained a “blue family.” They attend retreats for the loved ones of slain officers and have gotten to know Nicole Romans, Ervin’s widow.

“It’s one of the most exclusive clubs in the country that nobody wants to be in,” Will Tonn said. “Our daughter said she’s lost a brother, but she gained hundreds of brothers and sisters.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The day those four officers were killed was a vey dark day for parole too.

Nowadays the police would not kill that worthless piece of shit. Once cornered, they would spend hours trying to sweet talk him into surrendering.