Hundreds honor slain San Diego officer
EL CAJON, San Diego County — Hundreds of law enforcement vehicles and motorcycles escorted a hearse Friday to a final memorial service for Jonathan De Guzman, a San Diego police officer who was fatally shot in his patrol car after his partner approached a man on the street.
Gov. Jerry Brown was to attend the memorial following the procession of 200 uniformed motor officers and 600 police cars from San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium to Shadow Mountain Community Church in suburban El Cajon.
Uniformed police officers from as far as Chicago, New York, Aurora, Colo., and Fort Worth, Texas, packed Corpus Christi Catholic Church for the 90-minute Mass.
Jesse Gomez, a construction worker with a criminal record stretching back to 1983, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of murder and attempted murder from his hospital room.
De Guzman died 13 years after surviving a stabbing on duty, for which he received the department’s purple heart.