Slain Moreno Valley CHP officer honored in bell-toll ceremony
Slain Moreno Valley CHP officer honored in bell-toll ceremony
by Richard K. De Atley
Slain California Highway Patrol Officer Andre Moye Jr. was honored Wednesday with a traditional bell tolling at the California Highway Patrol Academy in West Sacramento.
The solemn ceremony took place instead of a planned celebration for the CHP’s 90th anniversary.
Moye, 34, of Moreno Valley, died Monday when authorities said Aaron Luther, 49, of Beaumont pulled a rifle from his truck and shot the officer during a traffic stop.
The CHP said Moye had pulled over Luther’s white 2002 GMC pickup truck in the area of Box Springs Boulevard and Eastridge/Eucalyptus Avenue, west of the 215 Freeway, around 5:30 p.m. Monday.
Eastridge Avenue between the east side of the 215 Freeway overpass and Sycamore Canyon Boulevard in Riverside was reopened to traffic Wednesday just before 11 a.m. It had been closed since the incident for investigation of the complex crime scene.
Luther’s wife McKenzie said Tuesday her husband called her to say he had been stopped for driving alone in the freeway’s carpool lane with an expired license and no registration — and with a rifle he couldn’t legally own because of his felony record, she said. Moye was filling out impound paperwork when authorities said Luther opened fire on the officer, who managed to call for help on his radio.
Luther was killed in a shootout with responding Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies, Riverside police officers and CHP officers. Two CHP officers were wounded by gunfire.
Luther was paroled from state prison in 2004 after serving about 10 years of a 12-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder with an enhancement for the use of a firearm, first-degree burglary and second-degree burglary in Los Angeles County, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
He was arrested by West Covina police in June 1994 in that Los Angeles County case, and one of the filed charges was assault on a peace officer with use of a semiautomatic weapon. The CDCR record does not indicate he was sentenced for that.
He was discharged from parole in 2007, according to the department.
He also was charged with multiple felonies in San Bernardino County and pleaded no contest in 2010 to assault with a deadly weapon, court records show.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
All credit goes to Richard K. De Atley
Originally published on https://www.dailynews.com
