A man convicted of first-degree murder for gunning down a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy at a stoplight in Palmdale just over three years ago was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen said Kevin Eduardo Cataneo Salazar “committed a cold-blooded, premeditated, well-planned and well-rehearsed assassination of a well-respected deputy” and has “earned and deserves” the sentence.
In what may have been a response to the decision by the District Attorney’s Office not to seek the death penalty against Salazar, the judge said just before leaving the courtroom, “I’ve already stated what my experience is in the area of capital punishment. This punishment does not fit the crime. To the family, I am sorry.”
Salazar, 32, was convicted Aug. 24 for the Sept. 16, 2023, killing of Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, a fourth-generation member of the sheriff’s department.
Clinkunbroomer — who had become engaged to be married four days before he was killed — was shot in the back of the head while in a marked patrol SUV near the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station and was rushed to Antelope Valley Medical Center in grave condition. He was pronounced dead that night.
Jurors convicted Salazar of first-degree murder, and also found true the special-circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer, lying in wait and firing from a vehicle, along with allegations that he personally used and discharged a .22-caliber revolver.
Just over a week later, the panel found that Salazar was sane at the time of the crime. He would have been sent to a state mental hospital for treatment if jurors had found that he was legally insane then.
The judge denied a motion by defense attorney George Rosenstock seeking a new trial for the sanity portion of the case.
Salazar’s attorney had urged the judge in a court filing to consider his client’s “documented past and continuing psychosis, and the complete testimony of the three experts who maintained opinions of legal insanity.”
But the judge said, “`I do agree with the verdict. The defendant was sane.”
The slain deputy’s family gave an emotional series of victim impact statements as Sheriff Robert Luna looked on in the front row of the downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
The victim’s mother, Kim, said the defendant “maliciously took his life” and shattered the lives of many people.
“… You cannot undo what you did,” she said, apparently addressing the defendant. “… His life did matter. Ryan did matter. His death matters and we will carry his memory for the rest of ours. I will never stop being his mother. I will never stop grieving my son, who should be here.”
The deputy’s father, Mike, called his son’s killer “a cowardly monster” and said his son “never had a chance to defend himself.”
He said he had never seen his son as happy as he was four days earlier when he proposed to his girlfriend, telling the judge that was the last time he saw his son alive.
Wearing a Ventura County Sheriff’s Office uniform, the victim’s brother, Chad, said, “You made your bed and now it’s time to lie in it.”
His sister, Katie, said, “He would have risked his life to save a complete stranger, even you.”
She called her brother a peace-maker and said he “made our family whole.”
Clinkunbroomer’s great-grandfather joined the sheriff’s department in 1937, followed by the deputy’s grandfather and father. Clinkunbroomer had served with the department for eight years.
The sheriff said after the sanity verdict that Clinkunbroomer was randomly targeted because he was wearing a sheriff’s deputy uniform and driving a marked black-and-white vehicle.
Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake told jurors during the trial that Salazar was initially following a Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant who wound up pulling into the sheriff’s station, but turned his attention to Clinkunbroomer and made a U-turn to follow him and stalk “his prey” as the deputy pulled his patrol SUV out of the station.
The crime appeared to have been motivated by retaliation because the defendant “blamed the government and police for his own disappointments,” Blake said.
Salazar’s attorney countered during the trial’s guilt phase that “impulse is inconsistent with deliberation,” questioning the prosecution’s assertion that Salazar was capable of premeditation and deliberation.
The defense presented evidence that Salazar had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2019 and experienced auditory hallucinations and delusions, including beliefs that he was being controlled by satellites and electrocuted.
Salazar’s attorney told jurors that three doctors who examined Salazar and reviewed his medical records concluded he was legally insane at the time of the killing.
But District Attorney Nathan Hochman said after the verdict in the sanity phase that prosecutors “determined that the standard they (the three experts) had each used to reach the legal conclusion of insanity was the wrong standard, not a standard used in the state of California” and methodically explained the facts before, during and after the murder.
Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian argued during the trial’s sanity phase that he was not questioning whether Salazar had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, while maintaining that “mental illness is not legal insanity.”
The prosecutor pointed to surveillance video showing the defendant at a Lancaster shooting range four days before the killing and said Salazar took steps to avoid detection after the shooting.
Ayvazian also cited a surreptitiously recorded jail conversation in which Salazar told undercover operatives that he had wanted to kill a police officer for years and described following officers, parking, waiting and playing music to prepare himself.
Investigators identified a Toyota Corolla believed to have been used in the shooting through surveillance video. A motorist who photographed the car’s license plate after an aggressive encounter with its driver also identified Salazar in court.
Detectives later found a .22-caliber revolver at Salazar’s home, according to testimony at a 2024 hearing. Salazar later acknowledged his involvement in the shooting during questioning by detectives, a sheriff’s homicide detective testified.
Outside court after the sanity verdict, Salazar’s sister said her brother had a documented mental condition that dated to 2019.
“We were asking for help. We were not asking for freedom,” Jessica Salazar said. “Once the trial started, we knew that it wasn’t going to be fair. He’s an officer and we’re just civilians.”
The Castaic Sports Complex was renamed the Ryan M. Clinkunbroomer Castaic Sports Complex in January, and earlier this month, a street in Palmdale was renamed in his honor.