Man who ambushed and killed newly engaged L.A. County deputy will spend life in prison

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A man convicted of lying in wait and shooting a third-generation member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in the back of the head with a .22-caliber revolver was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole.

Kevin Eduardo Cataneo Salazar, 32, was convicted earlier this year for the September 2023 killing of Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer outside the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station.

Thursday’s sentencing brings a close to a three-year legal saga in which defense attorneys, who admitted that Salazar had pulled the trigger, argued he was not legally sane at the time of the crime. Had a jury agreed with them, Salazar would have served his sentence while receiving mental health treatment in a state hospital.

Instead, he is poised to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Clinkunbroomer’s parents, sister and brother gave a series of emotional victim impact statements in court Thursday.

“His life did matter, Ryan did matter, his death matters and we will carry his memory for the rest of ours,” said his mother, Kim Clinkunbroomer. “I will never stop grieving my son, who should be here.”

A guilty verdict was reached against the man accused of killing Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer in an ambush-style shooting in 2023. Next, a jury will determine whether the shooter was sane at the time of the act.

Palmdale Mayor Eric Ohlsen said the sentence brings a measure of accountability for the brazen murder.

“No sentence can undo what his family and fellow deputies have carried for three years. My thoughts remain with them,” Ohlsen said in a statement. “Palmdale will never forget his sacrifice.”

Clinkunbroomer had served eight years in the Sheriff’s Department at the time of his death — following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.

Four days before he was shot while sitting in a patrol car outside the station, the 30-year-old lawman had proposed to his longtime girlfriend, who coworkers said he was madly in love with.

Ryan Clinkunbroomer is remembered for his work ethic, his humor, his hopes and dreams. The deputy was hoping to start a family soon and wanted, one day, to become a detective.

The ambush-style slaying, carried out in broad daylight, rattled law enforcement and the surrounding Palmdale community. Clinkunbroomer was rushed to the Antelope Valley Medical Center in critical condition and pronounced dead that night.

Salazar was later identified as the suspect when a motorist told police he had been aggressively confronted by a driver minutes before the shooting, according to evidence presented in court. On Sept. 18, 2023, deputies arrested Salazar at his Palmdale home, where they recovered a .22-caliber revolver.

In August, a jury convicted Salazar of murder and found true the allegations that he deliberately lay in wait and committed a premeditated murder of a peace officer. Last month, the same panel of jurors ruled that he was sane at the time of the killing, rejecting the defense’s argument that severe mental illness prevented him from understanding the true nature of his actions.

Defense attorneys had argued that Salazar suffered from past and current episodes of psychosis and was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2019.

Prosecutors questioned the schizophrenia diagnosis and pointed out that suffering from mental illness is not the same as meeting the legal standard of insanity. In court, they referenced an undercover jail recording where Salazar admitted he had wanted to kill a cop for years.

At a news conference last month, Sheriff Robert Luna described Clinkunbroomer as a hero, model son, amazing coworker and the exact type of person he wanted wearing the department’s uniform. Last week, the county Board of Supervisors voted to rename a section of Avenue Q in Palmdale in honor of the slain deputy.

Times staff writer James Queally and City News Service contributed to this report.

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Clara Harter is a breaking news reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she covered politics and education for the L.A. Daily News. She majored in political science and Middle Eastern studies at Columbia University.

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