Judge Says Life Without Parole “Does Not Meet the Crime” in Execution of Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer

On September 16, 2023, Kevin Cataneo Salazar assassinated Clinkunbroomer in a calculated ambush, shooting the unsuspecting 30-year-old deputy as he sat inside his marked patrol vehicle just outside the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station. Three years later, Salazar’s fate is sealed: he will spend the rest of his life behind bars, with no possibility of parole.

According to multiple Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sources who were physically inside the courtroom for the October 1 sentencing and spoke with The Current Report immediately afterward, Judge Coen was “no nonsense” from the bench. He rejected the defense’s attempt to secure a new trial, refused its request to eliminate the firearm enhancement, and sentenced Salazar to life without the possibility of parole, with additional consecutive terms of 25 years, 20 years and 10 years.

A Murder That Was Anything But Random in Its Execution

On the day of his murder, Clinkunbroomer, 30, had pulled his marked patrol SUV out of Palmdale Station. Prosecutors established at trial that Salazar initially followed another LASD sergeant, but when that sergeant pulled into the station, Salazar turned his attention to Clinkunbroomer.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake told jurors that Salazar made a U-turn and began following the deputy, essentially stalking his “prey.” Salazar ultimately pulled alongside Clinkunbroomer at a traffic light and shot him in the back of the head with a .22-caliber revolver.

A passerby discovered the mortally wounded deputy inside his patrol vehicle. He was rushed to Antelope Valley Medical Center, where he died.

Clinkunbroomer wasn’t simply another employee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Law enforcement was part of his family history. His great-grandfather joined LASD in 1937. His grandfather served. His father served. Ryan represented the fourth generation of the Clinkunbroomer family to wear the badge.

Within approximately 36 hours, LASD homicide detectives identified Salazar, surrounded his family’s Palmdale home and, following an hours-long standoff, took him into custody.

That was when Sheriff Robert Luna stepped in front of the cameras and made a promise.

“We expect the maximum punishment available under the law for the murder of Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer.”

Two days later, the Clinkunbroomer family discovered just how little Luna’s public promise was worth.

Gascón Takes Death Off the Table — With Luna Standing Behind Him

On September 20, 2023, Sheriff Luna stood behind then-District Attorney George Gascón as he announced the charges against Salazar and that he would not be seeking the death penalty.

“If I thought that seeking the death penalty was going to bring Ryan back to us, I would seek it without any reservation. But it won’t.”

Clinkunbroomer’s mother, Kim, said the family was given no warning that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty. They learned of that consequential decision as Gascón announced it publicly, with Luna standing behind him. It was a stunning betrayal of the promise Luna had made just two days earlier — and the moment his publicly expressed loyalty to his longtime mentor appeared to speak louder than his commitment to the grieving family of his murdered deputy.

“How dare you, on national TV, tell me you’re not seeking the death penalty because it won’t bring my son back?” she said afterward. “My son’s not coming back, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your job.”

If Luna knew Gascón’s long-established opposition to capital punishment, what exactly did the Sheriff mean when he promised the Clinkunbroomer family and the public the “maximum punishment available under the law”?

And if he knew death was never going to be sought, why make that promise at all?

Gascón’s opposition to capital punishment was hardly a secret. And as The Current Report previously documented, Luna and Gascón shared a professional relationship stretching back decades. Luna himself publicly credited Gascón with mentoring him and helping advance his career.

“I may not be here if he hadn’t opened that door for me,” Luna previously said of Gascón.

Thursday’s sentencing adds another layer to that history.

The Jury Rejected the Insanity Defense

Salazar never disputed that he was responsible for the shooting. The central battle became whether his documented mental illness rendered him legally insane when he murdered Clinkunbroomer.

The defense presented evidence that Salazar had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2019 and experienced hallucinations and delusions. Three doctors who evaluated him reportedly concluded that he was legally insane at the time of the killing.

The prosecution did not dispute that Salazar suffered from serious mental illness.

They disputed that he met California’s legal definition of insanity.

Prosecutors presented evidence showing Salazar at a Lancaster shooting range just four days before the murder and argued that his actions before and after the shooting demonstrated planning and an understanding of what he was doing. They also introduced evidence from a secretly recorded jail conversation in which Salazar reportedly told undercover operatives that he had wanted to kill a police officer for years and described following officers, waiting and using music to prepare himself.

On August 24, 2026, jurors convicted Salazar of first-degree murder.

The jury also found true three special-circumstance allegations — murder of a peace officer, lying in wait, and firing from a vehicle — as well as allegations that Salazar personally used and discharged the .22-caliber revolver used to murder Clinkunbroomer.

Then came the second phase of the trial.

On September 2, the same jury found Salazar legally sane at the time he murdered Ryan Clinkunbroomer.

Had jurors found him legally insane, Salazar would have been committed to a state mental hospital rather than sentenced directly to state prison. Instead, the sanity verdict cleared the way for Thursday’s sentencing.

Defense Tries One More Time

Salazar’s attorney, George Rosenstock, made one final attempt to undo the sanity verdict.

The defense asked Judge Coen for a new trial on the sanity portion of the case, arguing that the court should independently weigh the evidence, including Salazar’s documented history of psychosis and the testimony of the three experts who believed he was legally insane.

Prosecutors Michael Blake and David Ayvazian pushed back.

Their position was simple: Salazar may have suffered from severe mental illness, but that did not establish that he was legally insane at the moment he deliberately murdered Deputy Clinkunbroomer.

Judge Coen denied the motion.

According to our source inside the courtroom, the defense also sought to have the firearm enhancement thrown out.

Coen denied that request as well.

The Victim Impact Statements

Sources who attended the October 1, 2026 hearing described the victim-impact statements as particularly powerful.

According to the source, Ryan’s sister directly addressed comments previously made by Salazar’s sister about the fairness of the proceedings.

Following the jury’s sanity verdict last month, Jessica Salazar publicly defended her brother’s history of mental illness, saying the family had sought help for him and had not been asking for his freedom.

Thursday, according to sources inside the courtroom, members of Ryan’s family had their opportunity to answer.

The sources described the statements as emotional, direct and effective — particularly Ryan’s sister’s response to the suggestion that what had happened to Salazar was somehow unfair.

Full Circle

Three years later, the criminal case against Kevin Eduardo Cataneo Salazar has reached its conclusion. The questions surrounding how Los Angeles County’s top law-enforcement officials handled the Clinkunbroomer family in the immediate aftermath of Ryan’s murder have not.

And now those questions take on even greater significance as Los Angeles approaches another election that could once again reshape public safety leadership across the region.

Robert Luna remains Sheriff of Los Angeles County and is seeking another term after four years marked by a crippling budget crisis and a personnel crisis that has driven staffing to levels not seen since the 1970s.

There is also a claim circulating in Los Angeles political circles that former District Attorney George Gascón could be considered for LAPD chief under a Nithya Raman administration — a possibility that makes the history documented in the Clinkunbroomer case impossible to ignore.

Los Angeles has already experienced what happens when Luna and Gascón simultaneously occupy two of the most powerful positions in the county’s public-safety system.

Their record matters now because, at sentencing, Judge Coen imposed every punishment available to him — a stark contrast to the decision made three years earlier to remove the death penalty from consideration before a jury ever heard the evidence against Salazar.

With Luna asking voters to return him to the Sheriff’s Department for another four years and Gascón’s name resurfacing in connection with one of the most powerful law-enforcement positions in Los Angeles, what happened to the Clinkunbroomer family — from that 2023 press conference through Thursday’s sentencing — is part of a documented history of decisions that failed victims of violent crime, a record voters now have before them as they decide who will control public safety in Los Angeles.