Man Officially Charged With Killing Riverside Police Officer

A career criminal was charged today with murder and other counts that could result in the death penalty for allegedly gunning down a Riverside police officer, who authorities say pleaded for his life before being shot in a park.

Earl Ellis Green, 44, was arrested last Tuesday night in connection with the Nov. 7 slaying of Officer Ryan P. Bonaminio.

In addition to the murder count, Green is charged with grand theft auto and being a felon in possession of a firearm and an allegation of using a firearm during a felony.

Two special circumstance allegations — killing a peace officer and murder to avoid arrest — make him eligible for a death sentence if convicted.

Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said his office would decide within two weeks whether to seek capital punishment. The process involves meeting with investigators and the officer’s family, as well as reviewing the circumstances of the crime and the defendant’s half-dozen prior convictions.

“We take this case seriously,” Pacheco said. “There will be no resources that will not be expended in the effort to prosecute Mr. Green.”

During an initial court appearance today before Superior Court Judge Roger Luebs, Green was appointed a public defender and his arraignment was reset for Dec. 16. Luebs also ordered the defendant to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

The judge is slated to hear arguments on Nov. 30 regarding whether to impose a gag order and unseal the search warrant records in the case, which Green’s attorneys want to keep the media from publicizing.

Bonaminio first encountered Green while trying to stop him in the area of Market Street and the Moreno Valley (60) Freeway, according to police.

Green had allegedly stolen a big rig from a rental facility in Rubidoux and gotten into a minor accident, then fled the scene.

Bonaminio responded to the hit-and-run and signaled the defendant to pull over, which he did at the entrance to Fairmount Park, according to investigators. But Green bolted from the truck and into the park, where he ambushed the pursuing officer, Pacheco alleged.

“It is fair to say that this defendant took advantage of the circumstances to ambush Officer Bonaminio,” he said. “Mr. Green clearly, from the evidence, thought about the murder … Officer Bonaminio pleaded for his life before he was murdered. This defendant ignored those pleas and shot him. He could have run. He could have kept going. Instead he turned, grabbed the gun and shot him.”

The 27-year-old officer, who was discovered about a minute later by backup officers, died at Riverside Community Hospital.

Green remained at large for about 2 1/2 days before he was taken into custody outside a Target store in Riverside, where investigators tracked him. The ex-con is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.

A fingerprint lifted from the stolen big rig belonged to Green, according to Detective Ron Sanfilippo.

While executing three search warrants at locations around Riverside County, detectives found Bonaminio’s police-issued sidearm, Sanfilippo said.

The officer’s gun may have been used against him, the detective said. Three shots were fired from the pistol.

Court records show that Green has convictions going back 20 years, including for battery on a police officer in 1990.

His latest conviction, in 2007, was for vandalism, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. He could have faced even more time, but the judge dismissed several of his prior convictions.

Pacheco said Green was categorized by the state as a “nonviolent felon” and served about 50 percent of the aggregate time to which he was sentenced.

“An individual like this, with that many felony offenses, should have been in prison for a much longer period,” the county’s top prosecutor said.

“In my opinion, the system failed,” he said. “The system failed to protect Officer Ryan Bonaminio. He was assassinated by this dirtbag in the dark of night. That is a system that failed. Green should not have been given `good time credits’ in prison. It’s ridiculous.”

Riverside police Chief Sergio Diaz also slammed the notion that repeat offenders can be reformed and said his department devotes a “substantial” amount of time arresting parolees and probationers.

“There’s a lot of discussion about how expensive it is to keep somebody in prison, but very little discussion about how expensive it is to let them out,” Diaz said. “They’ve told us already how they intend to live their lives. My point is this: if we don’t have enough resources, get more. It’s too expensive to human life to let these people out.”

Green was not a three-striker. State law requires that a strike be counted only when a person is convicted of a violent or serious felony.

Joe Bonaminio, the slain officer’s father, told reporters that he did not believe the defendant should be “breathing the same air as you and I right now.”

“I want justice for my son,” he said. “I don’t care for this guy spending the next 40 years in a cell. I really don’t care for that idea. If he has to be incarcerated, like the rest of his life, I would like to see him spend the rest of his life in Abu Ghraib (prison for enemy combatants) in Iraq. I can assure you, the prison time he spends here is going to be the Beverly Hills of prisons. Abu Ghraib is not a place he’d want to go to. And to me, that would be the ideal place for him.”

Bonaminio, a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq with a military police unit, was the first Riverside police officer to be killed in the line of duty since January 2001.

He joined the police force in 2006 while still in the Army reserves.

A funeral service is planned for 10 a.m. tomorrow at Grove Community Church, 19900 Grove Community Drive. He will be laid to rest that afternoon at Riverside National Cemetery, 22495 Van Buren Blvd.