Suspects in Police Slaying in Custody : Plotters Held in Slaying of LAPD Officer

Several suspects are in custody today in connection with the ambush slaying of Los Angeles Police Detective Thomas C. Williams, police said.

“We believe that the case is solved,” Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth said. Booth would not elaborate but said details will be released by Chief Daryl F. Gates at a press conference later this afternoon.

Thomas, a 13-year veteran of the department, was shot to death by a ski-masked gunman as he picked up his 5-year-old son Thursday afternoon at a Canoga Park preschool.

He was buried today at a Mission Hills cemetery, after more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from around the state paid their respects during funeral services at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church.

The Rev. John Murray delivered the eulogy over Williams’ flag-draped coffin, calling the officer “a man who was brave enough to make confrontation with evil his life’s work,” and his killing “a wicked act.”

Intensive Investigation

Police had mounted an intensive investigation into Williams’ killing, which Gates called the first “assassination” of a police officer in the department’s history.

According to witnesses, a man fired several shots at Williams from a slow-moving car. The police officer, 42, was struck in the chest and died at the scene.

His son, Ryan, was warned by his father to “duck,” and fell to the sidewalk next to his father’s pickup truck seconds before the bullets struck his father. The boy was not injured.

Police prepared a composite drawing of the suspected triggerman, and focused their investigation on Williams’ recent cases as a robbery detective in the North Hollywood division, where he had worked for the last 10 years.

The officer had spent his last day testifying in a robbery case in which another witness had been shot and critically wounded this summer. The defendant in that case, Daniel Steve Jenkins, 30, was convicted of robbery Friday.