Deputies from the sheriff’s Santa Clarita Valley Station will wear long-sleeve Class `A’ uniforms with a tie Friday to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the shooting death of a colleague during the service of a search warrant in Stevenson Ranch.
Deputy Hagop `Jake’ Kuredjian was 40 years old when he was killed on Aug. 31, 2001.
Kuredjian had responded to a call of shots fired where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were serving a search warrant.
The 17-year sheriff’s department veteran had been assigned to the Santa Clarita Valley Station since 1995. He was described as “an avid motorcyclist” and had been assigned as a motor officer for six months prior to his death.
Kuredjian was awarded the sheriff’s department’s Gold Meritorious Conduct Medal in 1989 for saving the life of a woman clinging to a small tree branch atop a cliff in Malibu that year.
“Helping others was something that came naturally to Jake and that was what he was doing at the very moment he was so tragically taken from us all,” said sheriff’s Capt. Robert Lewis, who knew Kuredjian. “We mourn his loss, along with the many other people in our community whose lives were touched by Jake.”