A Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant was shot and killed while responding to a burglary call, authorities said Wednesday evening.
(FOX)- A suspect was arrested approximately 90 minutes after the shooting at an apartment complex in Lancaster, about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Sgt. Steven Owen, 53, died at a hospital about two hours after he was gunned down. His mother, adult son and daughter and his wife, who is a detective in the Sheriff Department’s Arson/Explosives Detail, were at his bedside when he died, said Neal B. Tyler, the Sheriff’s Department interim sheriff and executive officer.
“This is the thing we all dread,” Tyler said at a news conference. Owen, who also is survived by another adult son, was a 29-year decorated veteran, authorities said.
He was shot in the face with a large-caliber bullet that fragmented, said Mayor R. Rex Parris, who knew Owen for 10 years. “I just left 100 officers crying. It’s indescribable seeing that many sheriff’s deputies in tears,” Parris said.
“They brought him back three times. They worked on him for an hour but they were never able to stabilize him,” Parris said. Another deputy received injuries and was examined at a hospital but he wasn’t shot, authorities said.
Owen was shot in the backyard at around 12:30 p.m. local time after he answered a report of a burglary in progress at an apartment building on West Avenue J-7.
(Photo Credit: KTTV)