Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 111

Introduced by Senator Mendoza

February 18, 2016

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 111—Relative to the Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez Memorial Highway.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 111, as introduced, Mendoza. Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez Memorial Highway.

This measure would designate the portion of Interstate 5 in the City of Downey in Los Angeles County as the Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez Memorial Highway. The measure would request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost for appropriate signs, as specified, and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.

Fiscal committee: yes.

WHEREAS, City of Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez
was born on April 2, 1986, to Margarita Galvez in the City of Los
Angeles; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo was raised in the Cities of Los Angeles
and Bell Gardens, California, where he attended elementary school
and high school; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo began his law enforcement career in 2006
when he was hired by the Downey Police Department as a police
aide; and

WHEREAS, In 2008, Ricardo enlisted in the United States
Marine Corps Reserve and was stationed out of the Cities of Pico
Rivera and Los Alamitos; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo served as a Marine Corps Reservist for
approximately six years, during which time he was deployed
overseas as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Afghanistan and
Iraq; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo was hired by the Downey Police
Department as a police cadet in March 2010, graduated from the
Orange County Sheriff’s Academy in September 2010, and began
his career as a Downey Police Officer when he was sworn in on
September 2, 2010; and

WHEREAS, Over the next five years, Ricardo worked patrol,
establishing himself as a competent and compassionate police
officer, and strove to be a K-9 officer, volunteering to become an
“agitator” to better prepare himself for the position; and

WHEREAS, On November 18, 2015, after finishing a training
session with the department’s K-9 team, Ricardo returned to the
station to complete his shift and, while he was seated in his vehicle
adjacent to the police station, two individuals approached his car
on foot and the individual on the driver’s side of the vehicle fired
one round from a handgun into Ricardo’s vehicle, striking and
killing him; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo is survived by his mother, Margarita
Galvez, his sisters, Sandra and Nancy, and his brother, Peter; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo’s compassion and willingness to help
others was always on display, and he routinely volunteered his
time to coach kids from his home neighborhood in Boyle Heights
at “State Park”; and

WHEREAS, That willingness to help was evident when Ricardo,
after stopping an elderly female for having expired registration
and discovering that she had recently lost her husband and did not
have the money to register her vehicle, decided to let her go with
a warning and then paid her registration himself; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo was an avid runner and fitness fanatic who
could often be seen training for the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup
Relay, which is often referred to as the ultimate foot pursuit, and
is a difficult 20 stage, 120-mile relay race that starts in Baker,
California, and ends in Las Vegas, Nevada; and

WHEREAS, Ricardo was not only a valued member of his Baker
to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay team, but was also instrumental in
organizing the Downey Police squad for the event; and

WHEREAS, It is appropriate to memorialize Ricardo’s sacrifice
by naming the portion of Interstate 5 in the City of Downey in Los
Angeles County as the Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez
Memorial Highway; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby designates the
portion of Interstate 5 in the City of Downey in Los Angeles
County as the Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez Memorial
Highway; and be it further

Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested
to determine the costs of erecting appropriate signs, which shall
include this special designation and the badge and patch of the
Downey Police Department, consistent with the signing
requirements for the state highway system, and, upon receiving
donations from nonstate sources covering the cost, to erect those
signs; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author
for appropriate distribution.