10 SLO County peace officers have died in the line of duty since 1900. Here are their stories
San Luis Obispo County mourned the death of San Luis Obispo police Det. Luca Benedetti on Thursday with a memorial service and funeral procession.
Benedetti, 37, was shot and killed by a burglary suspect, Edward Giron, on May 10, 2021, as he and five other officers served a search warrant at an apartment on Camellia Court. Giron was found dead after he suffered a self-inflicted, fatal gunshot wound and other injuries, police said.
Another San Luis Obispo police detective, Det. Steve Orozco, was injured in the shooting. He’s recovering at home from multiple gunshot wounds.
Benedetti, a 12-year veteran of the San Luis Obispo Police Department, is survived by his wife and two young daughters.
Police work is a series of person-to-person interactions, often involving people who are under pressure or in crisis.
Hours and duties vary, and the job can go from monotonous to massively stressful with no advance warning.
Police work is also under increasing scrutiny as community members and social justice movements take a hard look at the use of force by law enforcement agencies.
In 2020, around the same time that people took to the streets nationwide to protest the deaths of people of color in police custody, San Luis Obispo County experienced three high-profile shooting incidents in which suspects opened fire on law enforcement officers.
All three shootings happened within a four-month period in 2020.
From June 10 to 11, Mason Lira engaged in a series of gun battles with law enforcement and killed a man at the Paso Robles train station. He also fired at the nearby Paso Robles Police Department headquarters.
Officers from the Arroyo Grande Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Kings County Sheriff’s Office and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office were wounded over the course of those two days. And Lira died in the final exchange of gunfire.
On Aug. 21, Scott Huffman fired at least 20 rounds near Tefft Street in Nipomo before he was shot and killed by responding CHP officers and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office deputies. No one else was injured.
“You can imagine with that many rounds being fired, we really lucked out,” Sheriff Ian Parkinson said at the time.
Almost a month later, on Sept. 24, Christopher Michael Straub was killed near the Templeton Cemetery after shooting and wounding a deputy. Straub was a white supremacist gang member with a car filled with guns and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
These SLO County peace officers died in the line of duty
The following is a list of peace officers who have died in the line of duty in San Luis Obispo County from about 1900 to the present. It was compiled with the assistance of Tony Cipolla, public information officer at the county Sheriff’s Office, and Officer Michael Poelking of the CHP.
On March 28, 1904, Arroyo Grande town marshal Henry Lewelling was killed by gunfire while trying to break up a disturbance at a saloon.
David Morehouse, a Paso Robles constable, was killed by gunfire on May 6, 1919, after he interrupted a burglary.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Charles Taylor died in a single-vehicle accident on the Cuesta Grade on Feb 26, 1929. Taylor was returning from an investigation in the Paso Robles area. At the time, the car he drove was the only motor vehicle owned by the county.
On July 2, 1952, San Luis Obispo Police Department traffic officer Vincent Munch was killed when his motorcycle collided with a fire engine at Broad and Higuera streets.
John Courtney Bond, a San Luis Obispo Police Department officer, was accidentally killed by gunfire from another officer during a training exercise on July 21, 1954.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office Deputy David Harvey Stahl was killed on June 9, 1961, while attempting to arrest a man involved in a kidnapping and shooting from earlier in the day. Stahl was shot near the river road outside Atascadero; gunman William Ford was soon captured and later convicted of the crime.
CHP Officers Rick Stovall and Britt Irvine died while responding to a late-night call of a truck accident on Highway 166 on Feb. 24, 1998. The flood swollen Cuyama River had completely washed out the roadway. A Nipomo man also died in the incident and two other people were rescued from the raging river.
CHP Officer Brett Oswald was at the scene of a disabled vehicle on June 27, 2010, when another car crossed the double yellow lines and struck him, resulting in fatal injuries. Driver Kaylee Ann Weisenberg was convicted of second-degree murder.
