Man Arrested Near Site of Police Slaying in Pomona

Sheriff’s investigators announced Sunday that an 18-year-old probation violator was found and arrested in an area cordoned off immediately after a Pomona policeman was shot and killed early Saturday.

Joseph Cesena had not been officially named as a suspect in connection with any crime as of Sunday evening, but a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokeswoman said he had not been eliminated as a suspect in the slaying of police officer Daniel Fraembs, whose body was found in an isolated industrial complex. Fraembs was the first Pomona police officer shot to death in the line of duty in the history of the 108-year-old city.

“He was taken in for questioning and eventually held for a probation violation,” said Deputy Benita Nichol, adding that Cesena is being held at the Men’s Central Jail.

She also said that Cesena’s brother, John, 30, visited the Pomona police headquarters Saturday to inquire about the arrest, only to be taken into custody himself on a parole violation. But investigators said there is no reason to believe the elder Cesena was connected with the slaying.

“John Cesena is not being questioned as a suspect,” Nichol said.

Aside from the announcement of those two arrests, and the stated theory that the shooting involved at least two men, sheriff’s investigators remained tight-lipped about the trails they were following. They even declined to say, “for investigative reasons,” exactly where Fraembs was shot.

Nichol said she had been authorized only to say that the bulletproof vest Fraembs was wearing was “not a factor,” meaning that the bullet did not penetrate the vest.

Meanwhile, a task force of sheriff’s deputies and Pomona police detectives has been established to investigate the killing. On Saturday, more than 150 Southern California law enforcement officers from more than 20 agencies descended on Pomona, a city of 140,000 people about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. They set up roadblocks near the shooting scene and cordoned off a two-square-mile area.

Law enforcement officials were looking for two men, because a witness reported possibly seeing two men flee the scene around the time of the 1:37 a.m. shooting.

Fraembs’ sister, Darah, said in a telephone interview Sunday that her brother had been adopted as an infant from a Hong Kong orphanage and originally was named Lam Tim. She said he was brought up in Cincinnati, spending two years at the University of Cincinnati before joining the Marine Corps.

Fraembs, she said, was in Beirut in the immediate aftermath of the 1983 terrorist attack on the Marine Corps barracks in which 241 soldiers were killed. She described her brother as a very active man whose avocation was karate.

“He wasn’t the kind of person you’d think was going to be an insurance adjuster,” she said.

After leaving the Marines, she said, Fraembs gravitated to California, where he first worked as a bodyguard for a security firm and then as a jailer in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Fraembs joined the Pomona Police Department three years ago.

On Sunday, sheriff’s investigators asked for public support in the search for Fraembs’ killers, asking again that all information be called into the toll-free number--(800) 511-0900--set up to field tips.

Darah Fraembs said that services are pending.