I wanted to take a moment and remember Officer Ian Campbell, a Los Angeles police officer who was brutally murdered over 30 years ago. He was murdered by Jimmy Lee Smith.
Jimmy Lee Smith died recently. He and Gregory Powell were accused of abducting both Campbell and his partner Officer Karl Hettinger. CNN has a good outline of that story here.
In 1973, Joseph Wambaugh, a former Los Angeles police officer, detailed the story in his book The Onion Field and then the 1979 movie with the same name provided national prominence to the killing.
Ironically Smith had initially been sentenced to death but was later paroled when the death penalty was suspended back in the 1970’s. According to the CNN report, Smith was in and out of jail after his parole. His partner, Gregory Powell, is still in prison and has been denied parole several times.
Ironically, Smith was already on parole for other offenses when he killed Officer Ian Campbell.