Killings of 2 Santa Cruz police officers leaves town devastated

, Lee Romney, Robert J. Lopez and Hailey Branson-Potts

Feb. 27, 2013 8:45 AM PT

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The killings of two Santa Cruz police officers in a shootout with a suspect Tuesday marked the first line-of-duty deaths in the Police Department’s history and sparked mourning across the seaside city.

Residents placed candles near the scene of the shooting and memorials were popping up on websites.

Analicia Cube, who founded the community group Take Back Santa Cruz in late 2009, called the deaths “just devastating for our community.”

PHOTOS: Two Santa Cruz police officers killed

“You’re seeing people grieving and in shock,” she said. “There’s people crying, there’s people mad.’

The city, about 60 miles south of San Francisco, is best known for its famed surf spots, seaside amusement park and diverse community that includes a University of California campus.

But in recent weeks, a UC Santa Cruz student was shot in the head, another student was reportedly raped and a home-invasion robbery left residents on edge. “Santa Cruz has always been a different, eclectic kind of town,” Cube told The Times, breaking down in tears as she talked about the killings. “Now it’s just gotten ugly, though.”

The Facebook group page for Take Back Santa Cruz, which is closed to outsiders, was filled with posts Tuesday night expressing anguish and anger, according to Cube.

“This is a horrific day. We lost two exceptionally fine officers,” a visibly shaken Police Chief Kevin Vogel told reporters. “We need to figure out a way to bring our department together and get through this.”

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office had taken over patrol duties in the city Tuesday night and was leading the investigation into the shootings.

“My primary concern at this point,” Vogel said at a news conference, “is for the safety and well-being of my officers as well as the families of the deceased officers.”

Elizabeth Butler hailed from Torrance and was a 10-year Santa Cruz Police Department veteran, police said. She was killed with 28-year veteran Loran ‘Butch’ Baker on Tuesday afternoon, when they were conducting a follow-up criminal investigation at a home, law enforcement authorities said.

[Updated at 9:39 a.m., Feb. 27: The Santa Cruz Police Department has corrected the spelling of Baker’s first name from Loren to Loran.]

The suspected shooter, Jeremy Peter Goulet, 35, was shot dead about 30 minutes later in a second gun battle with officers, according to police.

Butler and Baker ‘encountered Goulet as they did a search of the area. He engaged them in gunfire and was subsequently killed,’ Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak told reporters Tuesday night.

The loss of the two officers followed a recent series of violent incidents in the city and was especially devastating for the small Police Department, which has about 90 sworn officers.

Baker is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son who is a community service worker at the Police Department. Butler leaves behind a partner and two young sons, Vogel said.

As the incident unfolded, Santa Cruz police issued an alert for a Jeremy Peter Goulet, but did not explain the man’s possible role in the shootings.

News accounts from the Oregonian newspaper in Portland state that a Jeremy Peter Goulet was sentenced to three years’ probation and sex-offender treatment after a conviction for peeping at a 22-year-old woman as she showered in her northwest Portland condo.

The Oregonian also reported that jurors also convicted Goulet of carrying a gun without a concealed weapons permit.

Jeremy Goulet sent a text message that day to his twin brother, Jeffrey Goulet, saying he was in trouble, his father told the San Francisco Chronicle.

‘Why was he on the run? I’m just trying to hang with it, to make sense of it,’ his father, Ronald Goulet of Rosamond, told the Chronicle.

Here are some images aggregated from social media sites:

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-- Maria L. La Ganga and Lee Romney in San Francisco and Robert J. Lopez and Hailey Branson-Potts in Los Angeles

L.A. Now

Maria L. La Ganga

Maria L. La Ganga is the deputy managing editor for California and Metro, overseeing the Los Angeles Times’ largest editorial department. She joined The Times in 1981 as an academic intern, splitting her time between the former Metro section and National Dragster, the official publication of the National Hot Rod Assn. She has served as Seattle bureau chief, San Francisco bureau chief, edited in the Business section and pitched in on six presidential elections, five for The Times and one for the Guardian. La Ganga left The Times in 2015 and returned in 2018 after a brief hiatus during which she wrote for the Guardian and the Idaho Statesman. She was named city editor in 2022 and promoted to her current role in 2024. La Ganga graduated from Granada Hills High School in the San Fernando Valley and Cal State Northridge, where she studied English literature and journalism.

Lee Romney

Former staff writer Lee Romney covered the Bay Area and Northern California news for the Los Angeles Times from the San Francisco bureau. Romney grew up in Canada and then Arizona before moving to the Bay Area. She started with the L.A. Times in 1992 and after many years in the Southland returned to San Francisco in 2003. She left the newsroom in 2015.

Robert J. Lopez

Robert J. Lopez is a former Los Angeles Times investigative journalist. He was part of a team of Times reporters awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for uncovering corruption in Bell, a small city near Los Angeles. He and several Times colleagues were Pulitzer Prize finalists in 2023 for investigations that exposed corruption, criminality and worker exploitation in California’s legal cannabis market. Born and raised in L.A., he is a graduate of the University of Hawaii.

Hailey Branson-Potts

Hailey Branson-Potts is an enterprise reporter on the State Team who joined the Los Angeles Times in 2011. She reports on a wide range of issues and people, with a special focus on Northern California and the Central Coast. She grew up in the small town of Perry, Okla., and graduated from the University of Oklahoma.