In this August 19, 2014, photo released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff¿s Department shows LASD Sgt. Steven Owen.
Sgt. Steve Owen, 53, was gunned down around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday as he and a deputy responded to a 911 call from a woman reporting a burglary at an apartment building in the 3200 block of West Avenue J-7.
This still frame from video provided by KABC-TV, shows a Los Angeles County Sheriff's patrol auto after a burglary suspect commandeered it in Lancaster, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016.
After hearing the news about Owen, Sheriff Jim McDonnell rushed back from Hawaii, where he had attended a conference and was planning a short vacation.
A motorcade led by sheriff's deputies and the California Highway Patrol escorted the coroner's van from Lancaster to the morgue near downtown Los Angeles.
The new comments came Thursday in the death of Sgt. Steven Owen, which McDonnel called a "calculated execution".
A burglary suspect shot and killed LA County Sheriff Sgt. Owen on Wednesday. He was shot and killed, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016, while answering a burglary report and the suspected gunman was arrested after commandeering his patrol auto, ramming a second police vehicle, then hiding in a home as two teenagers cowered, authorities said.
After shooting him, Lovell lifted Owen's service weapon from his dead body and pointed it at a responding deputy, who shot him in the shoulder.
Trenton Trevon Lovell, a 27-year-old parolee from Lancaster with a long criminal history, was arrested on suspicion of murder.
A second deputy arrived on scene and found the man who had entered Sergeant Owen's patrol vehicle and was attempting to drive off with it.
Later that month in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, six officers were shot as they responded to a call, three of them fatally.
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Lovell was arrested on scene, then transported and booked at the Inmate Reception Center for 187 (A) PC, Murder. It was not immediately clear if he has an attorney.
The 29-year department veteran died at a hospital. However, he said the killer may have been able to draw a gun surreptitiously while the sergeant had his own gun out and was requesting backup.
In this August 19, 2014, photo released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department shows LASD Sgt. Steven Owen.
He was shot in the face with a large-caliber bullet that fragmented, said Mayor R. Rex Parris, who knew Owen for 10 years.
"This is an individual who no matter who you talk to in the community, was a larger-than-life person", McDonnell said. Two of those arrests resulted with time in state prison. She said the shooting has devastated her own family, especially her daughter, with whom Lovell had been living.
Lovell had been staying with his sister in the apartment complex where the burglary was reported and neighbors said he had a hot temper, the Times reported. The mother, who had left work and headed home when she heard about the shooting nearby, frantically located a deputy and told him where the suspect was.
"He's still my son, and I love him regardless", she said.
Law enforcement officers and community members held a candlelight vigil for Owen at the Lancaster sheriff's station Wednesday.
"This is the thing we all dread", Tyler said at a news conference.
"He was one of the guys I knew for a fact supported everybody. there was no kind of racial bias", Rivers said.
Sheriff's SWAT deputies were involved in the search for the suspect, who sustained a gunshot wound to the upper body and was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
