The suspect’s name was also not released. He had a criminal record that included robbery and gun possession charges and he was wanted by probation officers, authorities said.
A statement Wednesday by Fresno County District Attorney Lisa A. Smittcamp said the slain officer had been with the Selma force for two years. The son of farmworkers, he had been in the Explorer program with the Reedley police and attended police academy. He was an “expectant father,” the statement said.
The suspected shooter, Smittcamp’s statement continued, had been sentenced in March 2022 to 5 years and 4 months in prison for charges related to robbery, weapons and drugs. However, she said, “because of laws passed in the last few years that give additional credits for time served in local jail, and other new laws which allow for arbitrary ‘accelerated time credits’ upon entry to the prison system,” he was released in September 2022 and put on post-release supervision.
Smittcamp said: “Governor Gavin Newsom, and every legislator in the state of California who supports this over-reaching phenomenon they try to disguise as legitimate criminal justice reform, has the blood of this officer on their hands.”