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Assemblymember Mike Gipson has been a leader on police reform in the state Legislature for more than a decade, frequently citing his background as a Maywood police officer and publicly describing the on-duty murder of his partner.

By Ryan Sabalow

CalMatters

But the Gardena Democrat has been exaggerating his brief stint as a reserve police officer — and especially his relationship with the fallen officer, John Hoglund, who was gunned down responding to a robbery in 1992.

“He’s definitely, definitely not being honest,” said former sergeant Randy Bundschuh, who was assigned to the murder investigation of Hoglund, whom friends on the force called “Hogie.” He added later in a text message: “He was NOT Hogie’s partner.”

Gipson initially told CalMatters he served more than five years. Instead, Gipson worked for 18 months as a part-time reserve officer, meaning that he was required to be accompanied on patrol by a more experienced officer. In a later interview, after CalMatters presented him with its findings, Gipson said he “was not being untruthful” about his police service. He said he rode on more than one occasion with Hoglund and defended his description of a “partner.”

“If we’re doing a two-man car, which we were, that person is not a co-worker,” Gipson said. “That person is my partner, and we back up each other.”

Other former Maywood officers, however, are bothered by his description of the relationship with Hoglund because, to them, Gipson’s use of the word “partner” implies a close bond that they say the two men didn’t share in 1992.

“It’s hard to fathom that he would tell stories like this,” said James “J.J.” Williams, a former sergeant at the department. “I know for a fact he didn’t have that kind of relationship.”

Hoglund’s fiance at the time of his death, Terri Smith, told CalMatters that Gipson has been seeking to “advance himself on the tails of a hero.”

“Just tell the truth,” she said. “I mean if he’s a reserve officer and he was affected by John’s death, OK, that sounds reasonable. But to elaborate on it and make it more than it was to make himself look better, I don’t know. It’s sad. And it hurts my feelings that anybody would use John’s killing for something like that.”

Ed Obayashi, a law enforcement officer, lawyer and consultant who gives state-certified courses in police ethics, also said Gipson’s description of Hoglund as a partner is inappropriate.

“‘Partner’,” he said, has “deep personal and professional meaning that you will not find in the dictionary. It basically means that … my partner and I had a bond in law enforcement and a strong bond. It was lengthy; it was deep. We had each other’s backs on numerous occasions.”

Gipson, who does not claim he was working the day Hoglund was murdered, said he was “not making this up.”

“I’m sorry their narrative wasn’t the same as my narrative,” he said. “John was an incredible man. He was an incredible mentor. I’m sorry they don’t remember me being there.”

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Gipson’s Police Background Tied to His Career

Gipson is a former labor official, political staffer and Carson City Council member. He is running for a seat on the California Board of Equalization when his term ends in 2026.

Gipson’s partnership with Hoglund has been associated with his political career since the start. In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House shortly after Hoglund’s death in 1992, Rep. Mervyn Dymally referred to Gipson as Hoglund’s partner.

“This is an especially heartfelt grief for me because John’s ex-partner, Michael Gipson, a part-time member of my daughter Lynn’s campaign staff, is overcome with a heavy heart at the loss of John,” he said.

As a city councilmember, Gipson cited his “successful career as a former police officer” in his campaign materials.

In his first election to state office in 2014, Gipson made his police background a part of his campaign. He sent voters a mailer showing him in uniform juxtaposed with an altered image of his opponent wearing a hoodie and pointing a gun. His opponent, Prophet Walker, served time in prison for assault and robbery as a young man.

“Only one will protect what’s important to you,” Gipson’s mailer read under the banner of “Convicted Felon” vs “Former Police Officer.” Walker sued Gipson for defamation over the ad, but lost.

In the years since, Gipson has become a legislative leader on police reform. Following the national reckoning on racism in policing after George Floyd’s death, Gipson chaired the Assembly Select Committee on Police Reform. He authored laws prohibiting police from using certain choke holds, restraints and the use of the controversial phrase “excited delirium” to describe why someone died in a struggle.

In 2019, he gave an emotional floor speech, citing the death of his “partner (who) was killed in the line of duty” as he threw his support behind a controversial police use-of-force measure.

He noted that he didn’t serve as long as some other former officers-turned-lawmakers, but he said his police experience taught him that “when (officers) kiss their wives or their children, that may be very well their last time.”

“I wore the uniform. I took the oath of office to serve and protect my community. And I did it.” he said. “So for those of you who wore the uniform (and) for whatever reason, you’re not saying anything, that’s on you.”

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Gipson Omits Details About His Record

CalMatters initially asked Gipson about his law enforcement background for a story about a bill he authored this year to give family members of murder victims more power to pressure police agencies to reexamine stalled “cold case” investigations.

The bill has deep meaning for Gipson and his wife because their 3-year-old son, D’Ancee, was killed in the late 1980s by a hit-and-run driver who has never been arrested.

“Maywood Police Department gave me an opportunity to be a police officer there. I served there until my partner was shot and killed, and then I resigned,” Gipson told CalMatters.

Asked in the interview how long he was a police officer, Gipson twice replied, “5 1/2 years.”

But that doesn’t match a report on Gipson’s service CalMatters later obtained from the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training or employment records from Maywood.

The report from POST, the agency that oversees law enforcement certification, says Gipson was a Level II reserve officer at Maywood between June 1991 and December 1992.

Maywood’s human resources department sent CalMatters a document showing Gipson was employed and working for $7.50 an hour during the same 18-month period. The document doesn’t describe how many hours Gipson worked or what his role was.

The POST report shows Gipson completed 72 hours of basic course training at Rio Hondo College in 1986. He completed another 250 hours of reserve training at El Camino College by January 1991.

Shown CalMatters’ findings in a follow-up interview last week, Gipson said he didn’t remember saying “5 ½ years,” and he explained the mix up was due to him being emotional from discussing D’Ancee’s death.

“Certainly, I was not trying to be untruthful because I know reporters do fact checking and things of that nature,” Gipson said. “So I would hope that you would take that for what it’s worth.”

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, a former Democratic legislator who knows Gipson from his time in the Assembly, said what Gipson told him about his length of service at Maywood matches what’s on file at POST.

“He told me that his partner was killed in the line of duty, and he was a peace officer for a year,” Cooper said in a phone interview.

He declined to comment further about Gipson’s law enforcement record.

In at least two dozen speeches in the Capitol, Gipson called himself a former police officer, according to the Digital Democracy database. There were no examples in the database of Gipson describing himself as a reserve officer.

In one example, he told a domestic violence committee in 2017 that “as a former police officer, I can’t tell you how many times I had to go in a situation where I had to arrest the husband, in this case, for putting his hands on his wife.”

In the CalMatters follow-up interview, Gipson said there’s “no differentiation” between being a part-time reserve officer when someone is wearing a police uniform.

“I was in uniform and I did everything I can to serve and protect the city of Maywood and the residents thereof,” he said.

After the second interview, Gipson’s chief of staff sent CalMatters an agenda from a local neighborhood association meeting in 2015 that describes Gipson as a former reserve officer.

“It Was Awful for Our Little Department”

After a series of scandals, the Maywood Police Department disbanded in 2010. When Hoglund was murdered in 1992, it had a staff of 34 people, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Williams, the former sergeant, attended the police academy with Gipson in 1986 and Gipson rode with him a couple of times, he said. He said there were other reserve officers at Maywood who were much more active than the soon-to-be politician.

“We had some reserves that would ride, you know, two, three times a week,” Williams said. “Mike wasn’t that type though. He came in not frequently. … He didn’t ride with us all that much.”

As for Gipson’s references to his partnership with Hoglund, Williams said that doesn’t match what he remembers. “There’s only a handful of people that ever got close to Hogie,” he said. “He rarely, rarely would let anybody ride with him.”

But Gipson said he was an active member of the department who did ride with Hoglund. He cited the names of several former colleagues in the department. Their names match former officers CalMatters tried unsuccessfully to reach for this story. Gipson also recalled similar details about Hoglund working dispatch temporarily that lined up with what Williams told CalMatters about his friend.

“I think the only person who would know whether I rode with John would be John,” he said.

Hoglund was riding alone on the afternoon of May 29, 1992 when he responded to a silent-alarm call at a Maywood market. It had just been robbed at gunpoint by a group of men who had committed a series of armed robberies around the region. They’d killed the owner of another store.

On the way out of this particular stick-up, one of the men, Edgardo Sánchez, shot Hoglund three times with a .45 caliber handgun. Responding officers found Hoglund slumped over dead in his patrol car with legs outside. His firearm was still in its unsnapped holster. Sánchez was later caught and convicted.

“It was awful for our little department, what had happened to Hogie,” Bundschuh said.

Gipson said it was awful for him, too.

“John Hoglund was a traumatic experience for me in terms of him losing his life in the line of duty,” Gipson said.

But Bundschuh said Gipson never joined the other officers to drink and cry over their fallen colleague after their shifts were over. He added that he couldn’t recall Gipson involved in the difficult police work that followed Hoglund’s murder.

Bundschuh said that if Gipson shared a close bond with Hoglund, he should know his popular nickname, “Hogie.” But when CalMatters asked Gipson what it was, he couldn’t recall it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was 35 years ago. I don’t remember.”

Foaad Khosmood and Thomas Gerrity, members of the Digital Democracy team, contributed to this story.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.