Shoot-Out Victim Was Wanted on a Variety of Theft Charges

Sion Campbell Hawthorne, killed in a gun battle with police and the prime suspect in a $100,000 theft of heavy construction equipment, had been driving a stolen motor home and was wanted for an unrelated theft in Texas, law enforcement officers in Texas and California said Thursday.

The 27-foot, 1986 Allegro motor home in Hawthorne’s possession was reported stolen from Orange County, Tex., on June 13, according to authorities there.

In addition, Hawthorne, a Texas drifter and former construction worker, had an arrest warrant issued for an unknown felony theft in Beaumont, Tex., and had pleaded no contest to a bad check charge in March, 1985, in Jefferson County, Tex.

Hawthorne, 63, was fatally wounded Tuesday night in a shoot-out with four law enforcement officers, including two Los Alamitos policemen and two sheriff’s deputies. The officers were assisting two equipment-rental company workers in retrieving a stolen dump truck and backhoe on land that Hawthorne rented in rural Santiago Canyon.

Los Alamitos Police Sgt. Reed Gloshen, who was struck by a shotgun blast in the right shoulder and chest, was upgraded from critical to serious condition Thursday at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

While police were not certain whether the theft was part of a ring, several heavy-equipment and construction-industry sources said Thursday that similar thefts are widespread.

“Incidents like this are the tip of an iceberg because a lot more thefts go unreported and under-counted because various law enforcement agencies use different reporting categories,” said Diana Rummel, executive director of Crime Prevention Program, a private, nonprofit organization that assists insurance and security firms.

Rummel estimated that “at least” $23 million in such thefts have occurred in Southern California this year, while industry sources put the tab at more than $500 million annually across the nation.

Sophisticated theft rings dealing in heavy equipment are common, with a “pretty high degree” focusing on backhoe and skip-loaders because they have no registration or license plate numbers, according to Kirk Landers, editor of Construction Equipment, an 80,000-circulation construction-industry publication.

Landers said heavy equipment thefts peaked nationally in the early 1980s and have tapered off, although certain parts of the country, specifically Texas and Southern California, continue to report high losses because of a greater amount of construction in those two areas.

To combat thieves, organizations such as Rummel’s have begun identification programs in which contractors are encouraged to use non-removable numbers and decals on heavy equipment.

More than half a dozen other vehicles were also found on Hawthorne’s rented property, but a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said it had not yet been determined whether they were also stolen.

“Our investigators need more time to try to identify the vehicles. The VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) and license numbers were not matching up,” Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said.

Investigations into the case have been started by the Los Alamitos police, the Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County district attorney’s office, which routinely investigates shootings in which an officer is involved.

The backhoe and dump truck were stolen from a Los Alamitos heavy-equipment rental company the night of Nov. 9, or early the next morning.

“They drove the truck right through our front gate,” said Lance Slimmer, operator of the rental company.

Several days after the equipment was reported stolen, a truck driver telephoned the company to report that he saw the rig off Santiago Canyon Road in the county’s eastern foothills.

“Ironically, the place where the rig was parked was just off the main access road to Santiago Canyon Landfill. It wasn’t too smart to park it there,” Slimmer said.

Slimmer telephoned Los Alamitos police, who dispatched Gloshen and another officer to the area.

After arriving, the officers called the Sheriff’s Department for support and also called the rental company to send two representatives to retrieve the equipment.

According to the rental-company employees, the officers waited “at least 2 hours” either at or near the site but evidently failed to check on whether Hawthorne was inside the motor home.

At about 8:30 p.m., the officers moved in. As the two workers tried to remove the stolen dump truck, used to pull the backhoe on a trailer, Hawthorne allegedly opened fire from the motor home.

Spokesmen for both the Los Alamitos police and Sheriff’s Department said they did not know why the officers had not ascertained that a suspect, possibly armed, was in the vicinity.

“I don’t know why, and that’s why there are investigations going on,” Los Alamitos Police Cmdr. Orville Lewis said.

Olson added: “I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. All I know is that they called us for assistance and that’s when we sent our two guys.”

The theft was the first for the rental company in 15 years, but Slimmer said he believed that most heavy-equipment thefts occur at construction job sites.