Death Sentence Stands for Policeman’s Killer

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to set aside the death sentence of John G. Brown, convicted in 1982 of murdering Garden Grove Police Officer Donald Reed, 27.

Brown killed Reed during a June 7, 1980, shoot-out at the Cripple Creek Saloon in Garden Grove when Reed tried to serve him with an arrest warrant. The officer was shot once in the chest and died shortly afterward.

According to police testimony, when Brown saw Reed and two reserve officers enter the bar, he rose from his table and ran toward the building’s rear door. At the door he pulled a .22-caliber automatic pistol from his jacket and began firing.

After spraying bullets throughout the barroom, Brown fled on foot. Sheriff’s deputies found him a few blocks away hiding in bushes.

Reserve Officer Glen Overly, 21, was wounded in the chest, abdomen and hand, and Reserve Office Dwight Henninger, 20, was hit in the upper arm. Two customers, John Terzia and William McKinney, also were wounded during the shooting spree.

At the time of the shooting, Brown was being sought on warrants for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and suspicion of selling marijuana, officials said.

During his trial in Orange County Superior Court, Brown testified that he couldn’t remember the shooting because amphetamines he had been taking caused a memory lapse. When Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown asked him why his fingerprints were found on the pistol used in the shooting, Brown answered: “My fingerprints probably are on 1,000 guns in Orange County.”

Brown’s conviction received considerable attention in August when it was heard by the California Supreme Court. Prosecutors had asked the justices to adopt a new, less-stringent standard in determining whether errors had been committed during the appellate process. The jurists refused that request and upheld the death sentences of Brown and two other killers.