Wife, Family Grieve for Slain Officer

Hours before going to work on New Year’s Eve, Officer Steve Gajda was secretly planning his wife’s surprise birthday party for the next day.

But the party never took place.

Instead of blowing out candles on a birthday cake, Belinda Gajda was taken to a hospital where her husband lay mortally wounded after a murder suspect he was chasing shot him in the head.

“Words can’t express what kind of man he was,” she said through tears from her Corona home Friday. “I’ve lost a really big part of my life. . . . I never thought a day like this would ever come. I’m still waiting to hear the garage door open and have him walk in.”

On Friday, Steve Gajda’s grief-stricken wife, relatives, friends and Los Angeles Police Department co-workers recalled the 29-year-old officer’s zest for life and the way he tried to cheer up those around him. He played practical jokes on his colleagues, turned life’s ordinary events into spirited competitions with his three younger brothers and worked hard at cracking down on crime in a community he embraced.

“He didn’t want to transfer out of [the] Hollenbeck [Division],” said Steve’s brother Mark Gajda, a Beverly Hills firefighter. “He loved the area and helping the people there.”

One of the aspects of the job Gajda enjoyed most, family members said, was foot pursuits.

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“It was one of his favorite things to do,” Mark Gajda said. “He always wanted to be the first one to catch a person.”

Tragically, that appears to have led to his death Thursday.

According to police, Steve Gajda was part of a special LAPD detail aimed at curbing celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Eve. He and other officers had gone to break up a rowdy party in Boyle Heights, where they suspected gang members were causing problems.

After pulling up to the party, Gajda gave chase to a suspected gang member who was fleeing officers. As the officer approached, the youth turned around and shot at him. The two struggled and fell to the ground as the youth continued to fire his .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

Gajda and his partners returned fire, killing the 17-year-old identified by police as Mario Machado--the alleged gunman in a gang-related slaying in February.

Machado died at the scene. Gajda, who was shot several times, was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“It’s devastating,” said his brother Scott Gajda, 23. “It’s hard to take. . . . He was a very loving person with a very big heart. He would open his door to anyone.”

Born in Chicago, Steve Gajda moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1978. After high school, he joined the Army, working on a helicopter crew, was married and had a daughter. That marriage, however, ended in divorce.

“After [the Army], he knew that he wanted to be a cop,” Mark Gajda said.

Steve Gajda married Belinda, 29, two years ago after a two-year courtship. The couple bought a house in Riverside County and planned to have children.

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Although she tried to be supportive, Belinda said, she didn’t always “understand why he wanted to be a cop. I didn’t understand the excitement. . . .

“I felt like each day he was jeopardizing the time we had together,” she added. “But he was the type who wanted to serve and help people.”

Steve Gajda, known as a “hard-charger” among his co-workers, apparently was attempting to transfer out of the division’s gang unit into a detective position with better hours so he could spend more time with his wife.

“He was trying to get a promotion,” she said. “All he wanted to be was a good provider, friend, lover. He was my life.”

Shortly before he was shot, Gajda called his wife at home, where she was recovering from the flu.

“He told me he hoped I got better and said, ‘I love you,’ ” Belinda Gajda said.

She said she’s relying on her faith in God to help get her through.

“I have to have trust and faith in the Lord,” she said.

At the Hollenbeck station, officers tried to grapple with the loss of a co-worker and friend as well as the first killing of an officer from their division in 29 years.

“Everyone is kind of reeling from it,” said Officer Chris Revere, 24. “They’re trying to make sense of it.”

For many officers, the death was an abrupt and painful reminder that hidden among the routine procedures of their job lurks the threat of random death.

“That’s one of the first things they say at the academy,” said Officer Chris Dempsey. “ ‘You can get killed on this job. If you don’t like that--leave.’ ”

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Officer Jeff Smith said suspects are more heavily armed than in the past and seem increasingly “braver in taking us on.”

Some officers attributed the willingness to confront police to the three-strikes law.

“If a person is facing their third strike, they would rather take their chances on the street than in court,” said Officer Robert Munoz.

Police said Machado told other gang members that he would die before being taken into custody.

As if to highlight such a scenario, the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police this week released preliminary statistics showing that the number of officers killed in the line of duty rose 27% in 1997 compared to the previous year.

On Friday afternoon, members of a local gang gathered at a house near the scene of the shooting, where patrols appeared to be stepped up. They said they would have a carwash this weekend to raise money for Machado’s family.

On the broken, oil-stained asphalt where the shooting occurred, candles and roses paid tribute to Machado.

Meanwhile, people trickled into the police station to donate money to a fund set up for Gajda’s family. One donor said he was the brother of Adolfo Gomez, the man Machado allegedly killed in February.