Today in History: North Hollywood Police Officer James C. Beyea Gunned Down

Officer James C. Beyea of the Los Angeles Police Department North Hollywood Division was shot to death on Lankershim Boulevard 23 years ago today after responding to a robbery at an electronics store.

Beyea was 24 years old and had only been on the force for nine months. According to LAPD reports, he was shot with his own gun after a struggle with 16-year-old Robert Steele of North Hollywood.

Several hours later, as the LA Times reported, Steele himself was shot and killed by several LAPD officers who found him hiding in the attic of an abandoned home on the 11800 block of Runnymede Street, about three blocks from where the murder took place. Officers said Steele reached for a gun -- Beyea's gun. Steele's family sued the four officers who were involved for $2 million, alleging the officers killed Steele out of vengeance, but a jury refused to agree and found no fault in the officers' actions during a 1990 trial in U.S. District Court.

Steele's accomplice in the burglary, 19-year-old Alberto Hernandez, was convicted of murder under a California law known as the felony-murder rule, which states that an accomplice can be charged with a murder committed during a serious crime.

Beyea may be gone, but he is not forgotten. Beyea was from Reseda and lived there at the time of his death. Recently, the Reseda Neighborhood Council and City Councilman Dennis Zine started a neighborhood improvement project in Beyea's honor by building a footpath on a strip of land bordering the Aliso Creek Flood Control Channel and Crebs Avenue. But further held is need to complete the Officer James C. Beyea Memorial Walk.

You can get additional information from the Reseda Neighborhood Council member Juan Pablo Guzman at his email: aquaconc@gmail.com or Councilman Zine's field deputy email: Irma.Pomposo@lacity.org or Dennis Zine's project coordinator email: Jose.M.Martinez@lacity.org

Or come out this Saturday to the Crebs Avenue and Hart Street from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to help out.