Betsy Shepard

June 11th started off like a normal day in Los Angeles.

June gloom and bad traffic.

I got up early out of Long Beach and headed up the 605 and into East L.A., our office in East L.A.

Bauer was doing paperwork when a call came into the front desk.

The receptionist answered.

Then she hung up and she comes down to get a cup of coffee across the hall.

And I said, hey, who was that?

It was John Adjaye.

John Ajay was a 38-year-old canine cop, and he was calling to inquire about an upcoming job assignment.

I said, well, I've been trying to get a hold of him.

And she says, oh, well, maybe he'll call back.

He never called back.

John Ajay was working for the unit Bauer headed up at the time, the Special Enforcement Bureau, or SEB for short.

which consists of seven or eight SWAT teams.

And the SWAT teams were involved in tactical responses to high-risk situations in the field.

SCB handled things like active shooter situations, hostage negotiations, search and rescue.

It was a job that attracted adrenaline junkies like Ajay.

He was an Army paratrooper and a survivalist.

And those military skills, along with his buzz cut and square build, made him a shoo-in for the Sheriff's Department.

He was in the Army in Special Forces.