3 Deaths in a Week Hit Agency Hard

Deputy Paul Wilms specialized in working with at-risk youths around the San Gabriel Valley -- a lawman described by Sheriff Lee Baca as someone “who probably saved hundreds of lives� through his intervention.

Maria Cecilia Rosa was a fresh-faced deputy who did her work from behind a desk at the County Jail but was soon to make the move to the streets as a patrol officer.

Pierre Bain was a veteran motorcycle cop who patrolled the wide-open high desert of Lancaster and took his job so seriously that he issued 2,000 tickets last year.

All the deputies were killed over the last week in a series of blows that has left the Sheriff’s Department reeling.

Wilms was found dead in the Industry station Thursday after accidentally shooting himself while cleaning his gun.

Two days before, Rosa was gunned down in the driveway of a Long Beach home as she prepared to go to work. And March 23, Bain died after his motorcycle crashed during a chase in Lancaster.

“We’re in a fluctuation of sadness and anger and sadness again,� said an emotional Baca on Thursday after comforting deputies at the Industry station. “Whenever you have multiple series of deaths, you have compounded grief.�

It is the proximity of their deaths that has drawn attention to three deputies who may well have never met in a far-flung 9,000-person agency.

“I cannot remember a series of killings like this in all my 34 years in the department,� said Capt. John Franklin as he stood near the Industry station soon after Wilms’ body was discovered.

To some, Wilms’ death felt almost surreal, because sheriff’s personnel already had the customary black sashes over their badges to memorialize Rosa and Bain.

“No man or woman who wears the badge can say it doesn’t affect them,� Baca said. “But three deaths in seven or eight days can challenge the best of them.�

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At the Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles, where Maria Cecilia Rosa worked with many colleagues who came through the Sheriff’s Academy together, the mood for the last few days has been distinctly somber, said Capt. Tim Cornell, who worked daily with the young deputy.

“People are pretty well devastated here,� he said. “There was a tight bond, particularly with academy classmates here.�

Rosa, 30, was known for her bright smile and enthusiastic attitude, even at the routine jail paperwork that she frequently had to handle. But she was also tough -- something friends said stemmed from losing both parents when she was 13.

Rosa was born in the Mexican state of Sonora, the youngest of six children. She graduated from Gilroy High School in Northern California and Long Beach City College. Before becoming a deputy, she worked as a dental hygienist.

She was fresh out of high school when she arrived for a three-month internship at the Long Beach practice of Len Cutuli in 2004.

“She was a good hygienist,� Cutuli said Thursday. “She anticipated my needs and kept my line of vision clear.�

“It’s so unfair, and she didn’t deserve this,� he said. “I hope they catch who did this, but unfortunately that won’t bring Cecy back to life.�

Rosa joined the Sheriff’s Department in 2000, wanting something more for her life.

On the quiet, leafy street where she often stayed at fellow Deputy Jenny Martin’s mint-colored stucco home, the trash can had been rolled to the curb for pickup Thursday morning, and potted plants -- an iris and daisies -- amassed at the brick pathway to the door. The two had been best friends for years -- long before Rosa joined the Sheriff’s Department -- and both their families hailed from the same town outside Guadalajara, Mexico.

Rosa had a home in Pomona but spent a good deal of time at Martin’s. They shared a black dog.

Next-door neighbor Ida Barnett said that the woman with shoulder-length brown hair whom she knew as Cecy was friendly and thoughtful, and that both deputies had given her their contact information should she fall or need help.

“That was very nice of them,� said Barnett, a retiree who has lived on the street 29 years.

Rosa was fatally shot outside Martin’s home Tuesday as she prepared to leave for work. Detectives said they are investigating the possibility that she was the victim of a robbery and are searching for two young men who were seen riding bikes near the home about the time of the slaying.

In recent months, Rosa had been eager to finally leave the jail system and go on patrol, an assignment she considered more challenging and interesting.

“She was looking forward to getting out on the street,� Cutuli said.

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In Lancaster, Deputy Pierre Bain’s co-workers and colleagues retired his call number Thursday in one last ritual to acknowledge their loss.

The motorcycle officer was pursuing a speeding van last week when his bike was clipped by a car that swerved into his lane. He was thrown from his motorcycle and hit first one tree, then another, suffering massive injuries.

In a final roll call Thursday, about 35 deputies paused midmorning as a dispatcher called their names and numbers over the radio. It is a procedure typically performed during an emergency: Each deputy responds, no matter where he or she is in the field, to let headquarters know no deputies have been hurt.

As each name was called, deputies talked about their memories of Bain or sent messages of condolence to his wife and three daughters, who were listening.

His partner, John White, remembered him as a joy to work with, a man with a hilarious sense of humor and a talent for befriending the motorists he had just ticketed.

“Pierre was a people person,� White said. “There was no ‘License, registration, insurance, have-a-nice-day’ routine for him. When it was over, people would even thank him for giving them tickets.�

Just last week a colleague passed by while Bain was writing a ticket and returned a few minutes later to find the deputy and the motorist both looking under the hood of the driver’s vehicle, enthusiastically discussing diesel engines.

Thursday morning, after each deputy had had a say about Bain, the dispatcher called his number one last time: one-11-Mary-four -- 111M4.

They waited through the silence, then the dispatcher announced that roll call was over.

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Paul Wilms, 38, was as much a social worker as he was a cop. To many children in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, he was the guy who gave them a chance to make more of their lives through the area’s youth activities league, said Lt. Bondell L. Golden, head of the Sheriff’s Youth Foundation.

“He really touched the lives of children,� Golden said. “He ensured that children in the community learned to trust deputies and tore down some of the barriers.�

For the last three years, the 17-year department veteran had been head of the foundation’s All-American soapbox derby, an activity Wilms and his family had been involved in for many years.

“He helped put on the only sanctioned soapbox derby for at-risk kids in the nation, and he would take the winner to the national soapbox derby in Akron, Ohio,� Golden said.

Authorities believe that Wilms was cleaning his weapon either Wednesday evening or Thursday morning in an annex to the Industry station when he accidentally shot himself in the upper body.

Capt. Ray Peavy said that there were cleaning materials on the desk and an unloaded magazine clip but that it appeared a single round remained in the chamber and was fired.

Det. Phillip Solano’s last memory of Wilms was opening the door for his colleague as the two entered the station Wednesday.

“He was a real good guy, a real nice guy,� Solano said. “There’s going to be a lot of sad people for a long time.�

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Times staff writers Cynthia H. Cho and Lisa Richardson contributed to this report.