Sept. 26 TEXAS: Rookie officer slain----On-duty death is El Paso's 1st since 1991 -- PROFILE Theodore Michael Berry Age: 42. According to county records, Berry married Ramona Helga Correa on Feb. 28, 1992. The 2 divorced April 3, 1998. Theodore Berry owned a home in the 4500 block of Rutherford in Northeast El Paso from 1995 to 2000, according to the El Paso Central Appraisal District's Web site. Criminal records show Berry was arrested for marijuana possession Oct. 30, 1991. On April 24, 1992, Berry was ordered by a judge to pay a fine and serve 6 months of probation. Berry did not respond to questions from the media as he was transported from police headquarters to El Paso County Jail in an unmarked vehicle. Berry wore paper-thin hospital scrubs and no shoes and had a significant cut to his right cheek. Neighbors say Berry had recently rented the home in the 600 block of Bristol where the shooting took place. An El Paso police officer who had been on the job less than a month was shot and killed early Saturday while responding to a family fight call on the West Side. Officer Angel Barcena, 38, a newlywed who graduated from the academy Aug. 26, died at Beaumont Army Medical Center after being shot at 12:46 a.m. at a home at 612 Bristol. Police arrested 42-year-old Theodore Michael Berry, of that address, who is facing a capital murder charge. "For a chief of police, this is your worst nightmare -- to have an officer killed in the line of duty," Chief Richard Wiles, wearing a black band across his badge, said. "This is certainly a sad day for the El Paso Police Department and the city of El Paso," said Wiles, who at one point choked up emotionally as he spoke about Barcena during an afternoon news conference. Barcena was the 1st El Paso police officer killed in the line of duty in more than a decade -- a shock for a city that has been ranked as the 2nd-safest large city in the United States. Barcena and Officer Daniel Delgado, his field training officer, were responding to a 911 call from a woman about an intoxicated man trying to break into the house, police said. Police said the woman was Berry's wife. When the officers arrived, screaming was coming from inside the double garage attached to the middle-class home, police said. One of the doors was about 3 feet off the ground, and the officers entered and found Berry allegedly trying to break down the door leading into the interior of the house. Berry allegedly drew a .38-caliber revolver, and the officers retreated because they had no cover in the garage, Wiles said. Sometime during the confrontation, Barcena fired but missed with his Taser, an electrical weapon intended to incapacitate a target. Police never fired their handguns. Berry allegedly fired two shots, hitting Barcena once in the back of the upper left leg near the buttocks as the officer exited the garage, police said. The shot severed an artery, causing the young officer to collapse as he reached the end of the driveway. Delgado pulled his partner behind a car, fearing additional gunfire. It was unclear how Berry was arrested after he came out of the house. The shooting was still under investigation. The woman was not injured. "The fallen officer is a hero," said police union lawyer Gerry Cichon, who went to the scene. "If they didn't get there when they did, (Berry) would have killed the lady." Berry, with a red welt on his right cheek and wearing scrubs, walked silently as he was led by homicide detectives into a car on Saturday evening after hours of questioning at police headquarters. He was jailed for alleged capital murder and, if convicted, could face the death penalty. Flags flying at half-staff, black ribbons on badges and a somber mood marked El Paso law enforcement Saturday as the news quickly spread that for the 1st time since 1991 a police officer had been killed in the line of duty. "The mood is very down. Everybody is in shock," said Officer Mario Pagan of the Westside Regional Command Center, where the newly minted officer was stationed. New officers never patrol alone and are assigned to a field training officer for the first 6 to 9 months of their probationary period, police said. Barcena was wearing a bulletproof vest. Barcena was a graduate of the 1st peace officer academy that trained both police and sheriff's recruits. "It hurts all of us. There is a pain in hearts," sheriff's spokesman Rick Glancey said. "This young officer attended training with many of our students who got to know him during training at the academy. A couple of our recruits were on duty last night when they were informed, and they took it very hard." Mayor Joe Wardy said Barcena's killing highlighted the dangers police face daily. "This young officer lost his life trying to help people," Wardy said. He added that the death was a "wake-up call" to the problem of domestic violence in El Paso. "We ask the city of El Paso to open up their hearts and offer a prayer to (the Barcena) family," said Chris McGill, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers' Association. "There are no words to express the amount of grief officers are feeling right now." (source: El Paso Times) NEW YORK: Appeals continue despite invalidation of death penalty law Although the state's highest court effectively struck down New York's capital punishment statute in June, court appeals continue by other offenders who received death sentences. Since the state Court of Appeals ruled June 24 that a sentencing provision of the law is invalid, the state Legislature has been unable to agree on a bill to correct the problem. The Democrat-dominated state Assembly last week voted down a Republican attempt to introduce death penalty revision legislation that GOP members tried to tack onto a bill on traffic fines. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose Democrats voted 52-41 against restoring the death penalty in 1995, has indicated he is in no hurry to take up the amendment to the capital punishment statute. Prosecutors and death penalty supporters say there should be a valid statute on the books to prosecute the most egregious murders, such as the Sept. 10 slaying of New York City Police detectives Robert Parker and Patrick Rafferty by a man they were trying to arrest for domestic violence. "I think something as significant as the death penalty, we should have some airing on the issue in terms of experts weighing in on what's constitutional and look at the whole history of 10 years," Silver said. "There should be a process by which we talk about it, about the impact, about the constitutional questions." No one has been executed under the 1995 law, which Gov. George Pataki promised to get passed while campaigning successfully for governor in 1994 against anti-death penalty Gov. Mario Cuomo. Pataki last week started to turn up his criticism against Assembly Democrats for not addressing a legislative "fix" to the Court of Appeals ruling that the Republican governor introduced and the Republican-controlled state Senate has passed. The June 24 Court of Appeals ruling spared the life of Long Island killer Stephen LaValle by saying the jury instruction provisions in the death penalty law could result in some jurors voting for death against a defendant when they really don't want to. The 3 other inmates on death row were similarly spared because they were sentenced under a statute that had been ruled unconstitutional, their lawyers said at the time. But one of those inmates, John Taylor, is still fighting for his life. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said his office believes the instructions the judge gave jurors before they voted for death for Taylor in November 2002 satisfied the objections raised in the later Court of Appeals ruling and that Taylor's death sentence is valid. "Judge (Steven W.) Fisher crafted his charge to the jury in anticipation of this problem," said Patrick Clark, a Brown spokesman. "Based on that, he (Brown) believes the actions by the judge made here answered that particular (court) issue." Lawyers are working on court papers in the case. Briefs and other papers have not yet reached the Court of Appeals, which automatically considers appeals of capital punishment cases, and the court has not scheduled arguments in the case, spokesman Gary Spencer said. Kevin Doyle, head of the Capital Defender Office, said Taylor's defense lawyers "disagree" that Fisher's charge got around the later Court of Appeals objections to the death penalty statute and are "confident that the Court of Appeals will as well." Robert Shulman, condemned to die for murdering and dismembering three prostitutes in the New York City area, is also pursuing his appeal to the Court of Appeals. It also has not scheduled arguments in his case. A third man on death row on June 24, Nicholson McCoy, has been resentenced to life without parole in Suffolk County. McCoy was convicted of killing a co-worker on Long Island. LaValle, convicted of raping and killing a Long Island woman while she was jogging, has also been resentenced to life without parole. Before ruling in the LaValle case, the Court of Appeals had thrown out death sentences against the other 3 men to occupy death row in New York under the 1995 law on more narrow grounds. (source: Associated Press)
