Until encountering this sign I had no idea the city was doing this.....
The sign, at W. 4th St. and S. Kingsley Dr., memorializes the murder of Ofcr. Thomas Scebbi in the early morning hours of June 20, 1958.
The story is that Ofcr. Scebbi and his partner, Ramon Espinoza, were working that night in their prowl car out of Wilshire Division....sometime after midnight they received a be-on-the-lookout call for a man who had robbed a liquor store in the area....they proceeded to canvass the streets and eventually turned up S. Kingsley Dr.
At 2:30 AM they saw a man walking alone past 322 S. Kingsley, improbably he was wearing white gloves....the officers stopped him and approached....turns out the man, James Hooten, was an ex-con casing the neighborhood for a house to burglarize....he was packing a .22 caliber handgun, stolen the day before, under his shirt....the gloves were to protect against fingerprints.
Hooten thought he could BS his way out of the scrape, but as one of the officers indicated a pat-down he panicked: "I thought I could bluff them out of searching me," he said later. "I gave one cop my ID. The other guy looked like he was going to frisk me. Something inside me snapped. All I know is if they found that stolen gun, I'd be back in stir. I didn't want to go back."
He pulled the gun and opened fire, striking both officers, who returned fire and hit Hooten in the left leg....Scebbi crawled back into the car and called in the shooting before he collapsed....he was pronounced dead at the scene....
Backup arrived.....
Ofcr. Espinoza was critically wounded and taken to Central Receiving Hospital, where he eventually recovered....Hooten was found on a nearby lawn and was transported to a hospital prison ward....
"Suspect screams in pain as Nurse Wini Gronvold cleans left leg shattered by police bullet. Detective Sgt. Eugene Danforth stands by to question Hooten as soon as he can talk after treatment".
After recovering from his wounds Hooten was promptly convicted, and executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin on May 13, 1960 (11 days after the execution of Caryl Chessman in the same room).....
Thomas Scebbi, left, and Ramon Espinoza....
Additional details here.....
http://www.cemeteryguide.com/LAPD-Scebbi.html