Three Oakland cops killed in separate Sunday shootouts
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – An Oakland police officer shot during a traffic stop died Sunday, bringing to four the number of officers killed on the deadliest day in the department’s history, police said.
Officer John Hege, 41, died at Highland Hospital after being gravely wounded in the first of two shootings on Saturday, Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason said.
A 26-year-old parolee wanted on a parole violation opened fire on Hege and 40-year-old Sgt. Mark Dunakin after they pulled him over Saturday afternoon, police said. Dunakin died that day. Hege was hospitalized with a major brain injury and survived through the night, his family said.
Suspect Lovelle Mixon was slain later Saturday afternoon in a gunfight with police that left two more officers dead. Thomason identified those officers as Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35.
Oakland police said never in the department’s history had so many officers been killed in the line of duty in a single day.
The violence began when Hege and Dunakin, both on motorcycles, stopped a 1995 Buick sedan in east Oakland just after 1 p.m., Thomason said. The driver opened fire, killing Dunakin and gravely wounding Hege.
The gunman then fled on foot, police said, leading to an intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies. Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland was closed to traffic.
Around 3:30 p.m., officers got an anonymous tip that the gunman was inside a nearby apartment building. A SWAT team entered the building and the gunman opened fire, police said. Romans and Sakai were killed and a third officer was grazed by a bullet, police said.
Officers returned fire, killing Mixon, Acting Oakland police Chief Howard Jordan said.