Officer Down!

[LWM]

Killer of Phoenix officer gets death penalty

by Michael Kiefer - Oct. 19, 2010 10:53 AM
The Arizona Republic

A 23-year-old man who shot and killed a Phoenix police officer at a check-cashing store in 2007 was sentenced Tuesday to death.

A Maricopa County Superior Court jury imposed the death penalty against Edward James Rose, who fatally shot Officer George Cortez as the officer was trying to arrest him.

Rose pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in August, on the first day of his trial. On Sept. 13, the jury found aggravating factors to qualify him for the death penalty.

On July 27, 2007, Cortez, 23, the father of two boys, answered a 911 call from a check-cashing store in the 8200 block of West McDowell Road, where Rose and his girlfriend, Norma Lopez, were reported to have tried to cash a forged and stolen check. The incident was captured on surveillance video.

Prosecutors played moments of that video in court at Lopez's sentencing in April. She received 22 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

In the video, Rose and Lopez can be seen standing at a teller's window as Lopez fidgets nervously. At that moment in the video, Lopez walks out of the store as Cortez walks quickly up to Rose and snaps a handcuff on his left hand.

Rose then pulled a .40-caliber pistol from his waistband and shot Cortez twice in the head.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...#ixzz12pajfbJG

[LWM]

Manhunt on for killer of veteran Phoenix PD sergeant
by Kevin Tripp, KTAR.com (October 19th, 2010 @ 12:16pm)



PHOENIX -- A search is on for the killer of a veteran Phoenix police sergeant, shot while on patrol in the state Capitol area.

The dead officer was identified Tuesday as 35-year-old Sgt. Sean Drenth, who has been on the force for 12 years and worked as a patrolman and on the neighborhood enforcement team.

Drenth worked in the South Mountain and Squaw Peak Precincts and was awarded the Phoenix Police Department's Medal of Valour in 2003 when he rescued trapped residents in a burning two-story apartment building.

Investigators are trying to determine what Drenth was doing in the minutes before he was shot to death Monday night about a block from the State Capitol building.

Capitol Police found Drenth near his patrol car, about 11 p.m. Monday. They had joined the search after city police put out an alert that they had not heard from the officer.

The sergeant, whose name was not released, was working alone in the Capitol area west of downtown Phoenix at the time of the shooting.

Investigators said they had no information on whether the officer had stopped someone or what was going on just before the shooting. They hoped to obtain surveillance video from nearby businesses.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon went to the scene after getting the call about 11 p.m. Monday.

"A great officer was killed protecting us in the line of duty," Gordon told Fox 10 News. "He loved his job. I know him."

Sgt. Trent Crump said everyone in the department was upset.

"These are difficult times and everybody who's working this will try to put aside those feelings, investigate this, do the job that we do out here."

He added, "We have a lot of officers and a great support group. And that support group has responded out here this morning to be with family, to be with friends. A lot of officers who have come out here this morning are here in support of other officers, colleagues, friends."

Crump told 3TV that police but out broadcasts when they were unable to locate the sergeant late Monday.