Slain Deputy Is Mourned

With thousands of uniformed officers standing at attention and two electric guitarists playing “Amazing Grace,” the flag-draped casket of Sheriff’s Deputy David March was carried into a Santa Clarita amphitheater Saturday afternoon. Then, as if on cue, gusts of wind rustled through the pine trees.

The moment was not lost on Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who addressed the crowd of 3,000 who had gathered to bid farewell to March.

“David is a part of that cool breeze,” said Baca. “David’s hand is on the shoulder of each of us here.”

March, 33, who was gunned down Monday by a man he had stopped for a traffic violation, was remembered as a man of God and a man who could be counted on to do the right thing.

Most of the mourners sat or stood on the steps of the Grace Baptist Church Amphitheater. In the center, hundreds of chairs were set up for March’s family, brass from various law enforcement agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Los Angeles Police Department, as well as members of the sheriff’s Temple station, where March had worked for the last two years.

“In one horrific moment that Monday morning, the entire Temple family was devastated,” said Capt. Roberta Abner, of the Temple station, located in Temple City. “He was a good street cop.”

The shooting has made his fellow deputies even more aware of their surroundings.

“It can happen anywhere, any time,” said Zoltan Tombol, who works the gang unit at Temple station and who rushed to the scene moments after hearing the call for help. “It was scary to see one of your friends lying on the street dying.”

Another deputy who worked with March for two years described him as “a great dude.”

“He was just a good guy to be around, always smiling,” said Deputy Rich Soto.

March was born in 1969 in Barstow and joined the Sheriff’s Department seven years ago. He spent his first five years at the sheriff-run jail in Castaic before transferring to the Temple station.

March was on patrol in Irwindale about 10:30 a.m. when he began following a car, which may have contained as many as three people, for an undisclosed traffic violation, investigators said. After March pulled the car over on Live Oak Avenue just east of Peck Road, the driver got out, Deputy Rich Pena said.

The driver “met the deputy halfway between the patrol car and [his] vehicle,” Pena said. The driver drew a gun, fired and fled. Detectives said March was shot several times.

The search is continuing for 25-year-old Jorge “Armando” Arroyo Garcia, the man suspected of killing the deputy. The suspected drug dealer is known to carry a pistol and reportedly has vowed to kill any law enforcement officer who tries to arrest him.

Garcia, who is also known as Chato, is 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 9 and weighs 195 to 230 pounds. He may have the word “Garcia” tattooed on his back or shoulder area.

During the service, one of March’s friends described how the deputy tried to help some of those he arrested.

A couple of months ago, March took extra time to have a talk with a man he had arrested and later released. March told him it was time to straighten out his life. Two weeks later, the man returned to the station to thank March.

Thursday, three days after March was killed, his wife, Teri, received a letter from that man, who told her how sorry he was and said March had helped him turn his life around.

Abner told mourners what March had written about his job in his last evaluation:

“I feel I give a full day’s work. I’ve learned to enjoy what I’m doing. My goals are simple: To always be painfully honest, to work hard and to hopefully make a difference in people’s lives.”