Police Chief Honors Osmar Rodarte

AENN

“We are wrapping our arms around each other and being able to tell the funny stories about Rodarte and cry together, laugh together, sit there in silence together,” Chief Christian Sachs told reporters. “That’s what’s helped us get through the last five days.”

Officer Osmar Rodarte, 30, was shot Wednesday morning while executing a search warrant at an Olivehurst home as part of a SWAT unit. He died soon after at Adventist Health and Rideout hospital in Marysville.

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The search was part of a years-long effort by local, state and federal agencies investigating a group of family members suspected of transporting potentially thousands of pounds of drugs from Mexico into California, supplying street-level dealers in Northern California, authorities said.

Rick David Oliver, 60, a suspected low-level drug dealer whose warrant was one of 20 served in Yuba, Sutter, Butte and Tehama counties during the investigation that morning, ambushed officers inside the Kestrel Court home, shooting and killing Rodarte, authorities said.

Oliver, who was shot and killed by return fire at the scene, had prior convictions for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, a felony, and was a registered sex offender with a history of drug offenses and failing to appear in court, authorities said.

“In my professional opinion, the gentleman should never have been out of jail,” Sachs said. “And yet here we are.”

Sachs called for stronger criminal penalties and stricter inmate-release standards for repeat offenders such as Oliver.

“When we’re doing our job in law enforcement, and they’re out there putting their lives on the line every single day, we’re making those arrests but they’re getting out and they’re staying out, or early releases, right?” Sachs said. “The goal is to not have them early-released and out committing more violent crimes when they should be incarcerated.”

Twenty arrests were made Wednesday, part of 45 total arrests throughout the course of the investigation. More than half of the arrests Wednesday were made in Sutter County, including nine people in Yuba City.

The amount of drugs seized Wednesday was lower than expected, authorities said, and included about 7 pounds of meth, 17 pounds of marijuana and a quarter-pound of cocaine. Throughout the investigation, more than 340 pounds of meth, 8½ pounds of heroin and 1,550 fentanyl pills were seized.

The operation involved more than 125 law enforcement officers, including Rodarte, who became the first Marysville officer in more than a century to be killed in the line of duty.

The death of Rodarte, a veteran with a wife and family, shocked the Yuba-Sutter community. Hundreds attended a procession Thursday morning in which law enforcement from throughout the region escorted Rodarte’s body from Marysville to Placer County. Local fundraisers and community events have been organized in the time since to benefit his surviving family.

Marysville police officers returned to duty Monday morning, and flags in Yuba and Sutter counties continue to fly at half-staff.

Plans are forthcoming for a public memorial service hosted locally, Sachs said.