Two sheriff’s deputies remembered 21 years after being gunned down
Twenty-one years ago today two Riverside County Sheriff’s Department deputies were gunned down in the line of duty while responding to a domestic violence call in Whitewater.
Deputies James Lehmann Jr., 41, of Apple Valley, and Michael Haugen, 33, of San Jacinto, were ambushed in the early morning hours of January 5, 1997 outside a remote mobile home.
The man who was ultimately convicted of killing the two deputies, Timothy Russell, was convicted and sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison. He committed suicide in 2013.
Last year on the 20th anniversary, the sheriff’s department shared a photo of a rainbow as it was seen right above the freeway sign for the road named in the slain deputies’ honor.
