Officer Down Memorial Page

Your heroism and service is honored today, the 82nd anniversary an of your death. Your memory lives and you continue to inspire. Thank you for your service. My cherished son Larry Lasater was a fellow police officer murdered in the line of duty on April 24, 2005 while serving as a Pittsburg, CA police officer.

Many years ago in the 70's I was a C.O. at San Quentin and had to fire my rifle from the gun walk when an inmate stabbed another inmate leaving a movie which had been shown in the cafeteria. At that time, the inmate group Men's Advisory Council played a big role in choosing the movie. Unbelievably to me now, they were allowed to play
Texas Chain Saw Massacre which I believe stirred up a lot of innate violence in a good number of the inmates in the cafeteria. We narrowly missed having a serious riot, but ironically enough, women officers in a male institution were still fairly new and for a few minutes, I was the only
officer on the gun rail. I think many of them were scared that I would start shooting indiscrimately or would be an incredibly bad shot and they may get killed by being caught in the line of fire. Thus, the few minutes spent assessing me allowed other officers to respond and quell what could have been more serious.

Any CO faces the potential of serious harm or death each day they police those dangerous and mean streets of prison.
Different policies and procedures no doubt exist today so this is not meant in anyway to describe SQ today.

Rest In Peace,Officer Singleton.

Phyllis Loya
mother of fallen officer Larry Lasater
November 24, 2009

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