LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A jury is set Monday to hear opening statements Monday in the trial of a man who allegedly confessed to the ambush shooting of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy in Palmdale nearly three years ago.
Kevin Eduardo Cataneo Salazar, now 32, is charged with the Sept. 16, 2023, killing of Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, who was shot in the back of the head in a patrol vehicle while stopped at a red light near the sheriff’s Palmdale station.
The murder charge includes 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.
The Palmdale resident entered a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with the killing.
Salazar could face life in prison if convicted as charged and found sane. If he is determined to have been insane at the time of the killing, he would be confined to a state hospital rather than prison.
In court papers, defense attorney George Rosenstock wrote that “defendant was incapable of knowing or understanding the nature and quality of his act or incapable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the offense.”
During the sanity phase of the trial, the defense wants to call three mental health professionals who examined and interviewed Salazar and listened to statements he made to law enforcement after his arrest and during an undercover jailhouse operation and then concluded that the defendant was legally insane at the time of the offense, the defense attorney wrote.
“Defense also intends to call family members personally familiar with the defendant’s psychiatric history of multiple admissions to psychiatric facilities,” Rosenstock wrote.
In the prosecution’s trial brief, Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian wrote that the distinctive dark Toyota Corolla had remained behind a marked black-and-white patrol SUV driven by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant who eventually pulled into the station’s parking lot and that the vehicle then made a U-turn and began following Clinkunbroom’s marked patrol SUV after it pulled out of the station.
Following his arrest, Salazar told two undercover operatives in jail during a surreptitiously recorded conversation that he had wanted to kill a police officer for years and described following officers, parking and waiting and playing music to prepare himself, according to the prosecution’s brief, which noted that he said he wanted the shooting to be quick and painless.
He subsequently acknowledged in an interview with detectives that he had seen the deputy stopped at a red light, pulled to the left of the vehicle and shot while beside it, then went home, Ayvazian wrote in the prosecution’s filing.
At a June 2024 hearing in which Salazar was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Detective Gustavo Carrillo testified that Salazar acknowledged his involvement in the shooting during questioning at the Palmdale sheriff’s station by detectives two days after the killing. Salazar told investigators that he felt bad and “cried for the (expletive) officer,” according to the detective.
Under cross-examination by Salazar’s attorney, the detective acknowledged that when asked why he had shot the deputy that Salazar responded that it had “started a long time ago before COVID” and that he “began to hear voices in his head.”
“You asked him if the voices told him to shoot the deputy?” the defense lawyer asked.
“He replied it was everything,” Carrillo responded.
Under renewed questioning by Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake, the sheriff’s detective said Salazar didn’t have any trouble understanding his questions and only began talking about “voices” when he was asked about the deputy’s killing.
Investigators didn’t initially know who had shot and killed the 30- year-old sheriff’s deputy, but used surveillance video footage to identify a vehicle believed to be the Toyota Corolla and then to ask the public to come forward with any information about the vehicle, according to Carrillo.
The detective said that among those who contacted investigators was a motorist who testified that he took a photo of the license plate of a vehicle whose driver had aggressively confronted him about seven minutes before authorities believe Clinkunbroomer was shot.
Syed Alam identified Salazar in court during the 2024 hearing as that driver.
Avak Astajyan — who came upon the scene of the shooting — testified during the 2024 hearing that he was driving in the area of Sierra Highway and East Avenue Q and heard honking, then realized something wasn’t right about the police vehicle sitting in one of the lanes.
“He was gasping for air … He was bleeding from his nose,” the prosecution witness testified, noting that he subsequently noticed blood coming from the back of the deputy’s head.
He testified during the June 2024 hearing that he ran to the nearby sheriff’s station and started screaming, “Officer down!” with deputies subsequently rushing out of the building.
The sheriff’s detective testified at that hearing that surveillance video showed the charcoal gray compact car driving southbound behind a patrol SUV with a sheriff’s sergeant behind the wheel, and then making a U-turn after the sergeant pulled into the sheriff’s station’s parking lot and Clinkunbroomer pulled out of the station heading northbound.
Authorities used the license plate number shown in the photo taken by Alam and determined that someone living at Salazar’s house had a registered .22- caliber firearm, with detectives subsequently getting an arrest warrant for Salazar and a search warrant for his home, where a .22-caliber revolver was discovered, the detective testified.
Salazar subsequently acknowledged he had used that gun to shoot Clinkunbroomer, according to the detective.
The wounded deputy — a fourth-generation sheriff’s deputy who had become engaged to be married four days before he was killed — was rushed to Antelope Valley Medical Center in grave condition and was pronounced dead that night.
A deputy medical examiner concluded Clinkunbroomer died from a single gunshot that entered the back of his head, the detective testified.
The slain deputy was honored in January with the Castaic Sports Complex being renamed the Ryan M. Clinkunbroomer Castaic Sports Complex.
Salazar’s family insisted he was not a “coward” — as Sheriff Robert Luna called him — but is mentally ill.
“My brother, he’s getting called a coward,” Salazar’s sister, Jessica, told reporters shortly after his arrest. “He wasn’t in his right state of mind.”
“I do want you guys to know that my brother did have schizophrenia,” she said. “He has paranoia. He heard voices. We’re not justifying; we don’t know if he did (the shooting), if he did not. We are not justifying anything. We feel for the family. It hurts.”
She said then that her family was praying for the Clinkunbroomer family, but added there are “two sides to the story.”
“Just please, don’t punish him like if he was a regular person. He’s sick,” she said.
Luna’s mother, Marle Salazar, also told reporters her son was mentally ill and had stopped taking his medication, but they were unable to get him the help that he needed. She said she was unaware her son owned any firearms, but said an investigator told her he had legally purchased a weapon.
“The proliferation of guns in our society is one of the causes of an event like this,” Salazar’s attorney said outside court after the hearing in 2024, adding there has also been a “failure of gun dealers to properly check the mental history of people purchasing these guns.”
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