“Our department’s in mourning,” an emotional Kevin Vogel said Tuesday Feb. 26, after an afternoon of violence that left two officers and a suspect dead. The Santa Cruz Police chief addressed reporters just after sunset. “This is a horrific day in my career as police chief and for our community and for our police department. We lost two exceptionally fine officers today.”
Santa Cruz Police say the two officers, Loran “Butch” Baker and Elizabeth Butler, had been doing an investigation on Branciforte Ave, when they were shot and killed around 3:30 pm by Jeremy Goulet, who had recently been released on $250 bail. Other officers arrived on the scene and encountered Goulet about 30 minutes later on Doyle Street. The resulting shootout left Goulet also dead. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported Goulet moved to Santa Cruz from Portland, Ore and has also lived in Berkeley.
With three schools within a few blocks of the shootout, school children were put in lockdown on the campuses as parents nervously waited on the other side of yellow caution tape to see their children again. The children were later transported by bus to the county building, where they were reunited with their parents.
The shootout was just the most recent incident in a wave of crime that has left Santa Cruz stunned. In less than three weeks, Santa Cruz has been hit with a homicide, an attempted murder, an armed robbery and home robbery—in addition to a violent rape in broad daylight at UC Santa Cruz.
Chief Vogel tried yesterday to come to grips with life at SCPD with out 28-year veteran Loran “Butch” Baker and 10-year veteran Elizabeth Butler. “We need to figure out a way to bring the department together to get through this,” Vogel said.
Early in the afternoon, the scene near the shooting was filled with worried parents hoping their children were safe in the locked down schools. As they looked back on Santa Cruz’s recent crime wave, some talked about leaving Santa Cruz, while others questioned city leadership.
“What is the city doing?” Renata Russo, the parent of a four-year-old, asked. “I want everybody to ask what the city is really doing about crime. Everyone needs to protect themselves. This is the last thing I thought would ever happen. It’s just unbelievable.”
