February 09, 2010

Convicted Calif. cop killer gets death penalty

Alberto Alvarez murdered Officer Richard May in '06

San Francisco Chronicle

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. — The "evil" killer of an East Palo Alto police officer showed no mercy or remorse as he stood over the fallen man and fired a final shot into his head, the officer's family said today in court before a judge sentenced the convicted murderer to death.

Alberto Alvarez, 26, showed no reaction as family members of Officer Richard May denounced him in a packed Redwood City courtroom. But he sighed as Superior Court Judge Craig Parsons followed an earlier jury decision and formally sentenced him to die by lethal injection for the 2006 killing.

The slain officer's stepfather, Frank Merrill, and father, Rick May, pumped their arms as Parsons told Alvarez that he would be executed.

"Unfortunately, his death will be humane, unlike Rich's," Merrill said in San Mateo County Superior Court moments earlier.

May's widow, Diana May, clutched a tissue as she described how Alvarez served as her husband's judge, jury and executioner Jan. 7, 2006, when he fired three shots at the 38-year-old officer, briefly left and then returned to fire the fatal shot into his head.

"The man I expected to live the rest of my life with is gone forever," May said. "Our family meant everything to him. He was too young to die."

Alvarez, she said, is an "evil killer."

Steve Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney, called the murder "one of the most evil crimes that can be committed."

Parsons agreed, saying the crime was "particularly savage and brutal." Before pronouncing sentence, the judge rejected Alvarez's motion for a new trial and his request to be sentenced to life in prison without possible parole.

Neither Alvarez nor his attorneys spoke in court today. Alvarez took the unusual step of testifying in his own defense at trial, saying he had pulled out his gun only after May shot him in the leg.

Today, Merrill derided Alvarez and his attorneys for what he termed a "cock-and-bull story."

A jury convicted Alvarez in November of first-degree murder and the special circumstance of murdering a police officer, which made him eligible for the death penalty. The same jury later determined that Alvarez should be put to death.

Alvarez shot May after the officer responded to a fight at a University Avenue taqueria. When May tried to stop him on Weeks Street around the corner from the taqueria, Alvarez shot him twice in the chest and once in the shoulder, started to run, then returned and shot him in the face.

Among those who saw the shooting was a teenage police Explorer riding with May.

May left behind three children.

The native of San Luis Obispo was a police officer for 14 years in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County) before joining the East Palo Alto force about 18 months before he was killed.

Alvarez, a parolee with a prior felony conviction for gun possession, was arrested the day after the killing while hiding in the backseat of a friend's car.