Sheriff's honor guard at Oakland services

Five members of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office honor guard attended the funerals Friday for four Oakland policeman killed March 21 in the line of duty.

Undersheriff Paul Howell said Sgt. Will Lynch and deputies Kevin Schaller, Nate Almeida, George Schramm, and Dean Kumagai participated in the ceremonies.

More than 20,000 people packed the Oracle Arena for the service. It was estimated 25 percent of those were law enforcement officers from over the United States.

Three Oakland officers were killed Saturday and a fourth died Monday after he was removed from life support.

Their killer, a 26-year-old Oakland parolee at-large was shot dead by police after he fired on officers who stormed an apartment building where he was hiding.

"It's kind of a tradition," Howell said. "We provide an honor guard out of respect for our fellow officers. These are our brother officers who made the ultimate sacrifice."

Howell said the honor guard members left for Oakland on Thursday and would return Friday. He said the sheriff's office provided two marked vehicles and the fuel for the trip, but the officers went on their own time and paid all their expenses.

Howell said the sheriff's office was deeply affected by the Oakland killings.

"It was very terrible," he said. "That's not that big of a department. As an administrator, you ask yourself how do you recover from that?"