2 Cops Shot Dead in Calif. Sex Assault Investigation

Two police officers investigating a sexual assault complaint in Santa Cruz were shot dead yesterday in what the California city's police chief says is the darkest day in his department's history. The two veteran officers, one male and one female, were gunned down when they arrived at the home of a suspect who was killed in a shootout with police officers half an hour later, reports the Santa Cruz Sentinel, which notes that the police deaths are the first in the line of duty in the history of the city of 60,000.

The dead suspect has been identified as Jeremy Goulet, a 35-year-old barista who was arrested and fired last week after a co-worker in a Santa Cruz coffee shop told police that he went to her house and made inappropriate sexual advances, the AP reports. Goulet was sentenced to three years of probation in Portland, Oregon, in 2008 after being convicted of peeping at a woman showering and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, the Oregonian adds. (More shooting stories.)