Slain Pomona officer known for contagious smile

The orange hospital visitor’s badge had begun to curl away from her black cardigan, but Joy Diamond ran her hand over it, an attempt to smooth it back in place.

Hours had passed since her son had been honored by dozens of fellow police officers in a procession to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Still, as she sat outside her Rosemead house Wednesday eyeing the car that her son had planned to fix that day, she could not give in to the truth.

“If I take it off, it is real,” the 67-year-old said of the sticker she received at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. “My baby died.”

Shaun Richard Diamond was shot early Tuesday while serving a search warrant at a San Gabriel home as part of an investigation into a motorcycle gang. The 45-year-old Pomona SWAT officer died Wednesday. The suspect, David Martinez, identified as a member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, was arrested at the scene and is being held without bail.

Colleagues remembered Diamond as a man with an incredible sense of humor and a contagious smile. A registered organ and tissue donor, he had given one of his kidneys eight years ago to his son.

Throughout his 16-year career, Diamond worked for police departments in Los Angeles and Montebello, joining the Pomona force in 2006. The father of two was well-known in the community, Pomona Police Chief Paul Capraro said.

“He’s somebody that anybody would get along with,” he said. “If you went door to door and asked any of those people, they would tell you ... they enjoyed working with him.”

Capraro called the early morning escort of Diamond’s body to the coroner’s office “something I never wanted to personally experience [but] quite a tribute to a great man.”

In addition to the SWAT duties he performed for six years, Diamond worked in downtown Pomona and participated in community outreach efforts, including Special Olympics events and school demonstrations.

Authorities would not provide details about the investigation that sent Diamond and a multi-agency team to the home Martinez shared with his parents in the 100 block of San Marino Avenue.

It was about dawn when officers smashed through the front door with a battering ram. Diamond stood behind them. When the officers entered the home, Martinez fired a single shotgun round and Diamond was struck in the back of his head, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said.

“It was so scary, man,” said Marco Polanco, 55, who watched events unfold from his bedroom window across the street.

Polanco and other longtime residents say that the neighborhood’s dynamic changed when Martinez, 36, moved in last year. The once serene streets of the close-knit community suddenly reverberated with the roar of his motorcycle, and there were raucous late-night gatherings.

Martinez might be the first Mongols member accused of killing a peace officer. First formed in Montebello, the gang has chapters across the world, but the most violent reside in California, said Independence, Mo., Det. Steve Cook, an expert on motorcycle gangs. Although the gang has been involved in police shootings, it’s known more for drug trafficking and battles with the Hells Angels, Cook said.

Martinez was scheduled to appear in court Thursday.

In the wake of the shooting, Diamond’s mother has been left with thoughts that haunt her. For years, her son had aspired to be a firefighter, but then he went on a ride-along with his uncle, a Montebello police officer.

“He was hooked,” Joy Diamond said. “Down came the firefighter poster that had been hanging on his wall.”

He called after he applied for the SWAT team. She wasn’t thrilled but trusted his decision. She ended every phone call the same way: “Watch your back.”

Battling cancer, Joy Diamond found her middle child a source of strength. They had plans to go out for margaritas when her chemotherapy treatments ended in December. Now the idea brings her to tears.

Life without him, she said, was unimaginable.

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Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.