By Sharon Bernstein
The Sacramento Bee
SACREMNTO, Calif. — A Sacramento judge on Friday formally imposed the death penalty for Adel Ramos, who pleaded guilty to the ambush killing of rookie police officer Tara O’Sullivan in a bloody, methamphetamine-fueled North Sacramento assault that shocked the capital region.
Ramos, who pleaded guilty last summer, showed no emotion as O’Sullivan’s family, friends, and former colleagues delivered tearful victim impact statements describing the grief and trauma they have endured since her 2019 death.
“I am broken,” Kelley O’Sullivan, the slain officer’s mother, told the court. “There is no fixing this.”
Ramos shot the 26-year-old to death as she tried to help his then-girlfriend collect her things and escape from him after he began behaving erratically and threatening violence.
Although California has not executed a prisoner since 2006, the death penalty remains legal and is still pursued in select cases. Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho sought capital punishment for Ramos twice. After a jury deadlocked last fall, a second jury returned a death verdict in March.
“Today’s death penalty sentence delivers a measure of justice for the brutal and calculated murder of Sacramento Police Officer Tara O’Sullivan, who gave her life in service to her community,” Ho said Friday. “This sentence reflects the gravity of the crime and recognizes the ultimate sacrifice Tara and her family have made.”
The courtroom was packed with O’Sullivan’s friends and relatives — including her parents, cousins and sister — as well as numerous Sacramento police officers. Ramos’ grown children and his estranged wife, who separated from him long before the murder, also attended the hearing.
“Today’s sentencing brings accountability for the tragic murder of Officer Tara O’Sullivan,” Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said. “While no outcome can ever replace Tara or ease the pain of her loss, we are grateful for the hard work and dedication of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and all of our law enforcement partners who helped bring this case to justice. Tara’s service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
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Daniel Chipp, O’Sullivan’s training officer, left the force after the young officer’s murder. Chipp was among several officers on the scene who were prevented from rescuing O’Sullivan by Ramos, who hid inside a house and fired wildly on officers, keeping them away from her for 45 minutes as she died from her wounds.
At the hearing on Friday, Chipp thanked the judge, prosecutors and the team who represented Ramos, saying lawyers Peter Kmeto and Jan Karowsky gave him a better defense than he deserved. But he saved his anger for Ramos.
“I pray for his misery just as he preyed on us,” Chipp said.
The events that led to the ambush and murder began when Megan Jansa, who lived in Ramos in a house on Redwood Avenue in Del Paso Heights, called police with help retrieving her dogs and clothing. Ramos, she said, had threatened to kill her, even bringing a shovel into the dining room and saying he would use it to bury her.
Jansa had slipped out of the home that morning, but needed to go back and get her things, she said in court testimony during the trial.
O’Sullivan, new on the job and still in training, was particularly interested in helping victims of domestic violence, and told Chipp she wanted to answer the call even though it wasn’t technically in the area they were supposed to be working that day, Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Hightower said during the trial.
When the pair arrived, they found the door to the house locked and barricaded. They went around to the backyard, unaware that Ramos had set it up to be a killing field, Hightower said.
After shooting O’Sullivan, he taunted her as she lay dying, and shot at officers trying to help her.
Ramos pleaded guilty on Aug. 30 to felony counts including murder with special circumstances for O’Sullivan’s slaying and attempted murder of another officer at the violent, bloody scene. He initially pleaded not guilty, but the trial was delayed as his attorneys argued that he was not mentally competent to stand trial.
His guilty plea ordinarily would have meant that no trial was held, but when prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, a separate trial must be held to determine if that ultimate sentence is appropriate.
It is highly unlikely, however, that Ramos, 51, will actually be put to death. California has a moratorium on executions, and the state has dismantled both its death row and its execution chamber. San Quentin State Prison, where condemned inmates were housed for decades, has been renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and the inmates have been moved into the general population at several prisons.
Mandatory appeals for death sentences can take decades, and there is such a shortage of lawyers qualified to represent condemned inmates that it can take up to 30 years just for an attorney to be assigned to a case.
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