Police nab suspected cop killer

RIVERSIDE — Earl Ellis Green, who has spent 136 of the past 219 months in state prison, is the chief suspect in the killing of a Riverside police officer Sunday night during a chase through a city park.

Green, suspected of shooting dead Officer Ryan Bonaminio, was captured Tuesday night. A single count of murder was filed on Friday.
Bonaminio, a four-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department, was shot in Fairmount Park as he chased Green, who was allegedly involved in a hit-and-run that had occurred only minutes earlier.

According to police reports, Green, a suspected former member of the Crips gang, has been in and out of prison nine times for various crimes, including an assault on a police officer that left the officer with a broken nose.

At a mid-day news conference at the Riverside Police Department on Wednesday, police Chief Sergio Diaz decried a criminal justice system that let the 44-year-old Green loose too many times.

“We do have unfortunately a revolving door system of criminal justice,” he said. “This is what it costs to let people out with the blind hope that they’ll cure themselves, that they’ll rehabilitate themselves.”

Diaz paused, adding, “They don’t.”

Green was caught less than two days after Bonaminio’s killing. A thumb print lifted off a stolen big rig, which he had been driving when Bonaminio pulled him over Sunday night, eventually led police and the FBI to his home.

Investigators put him under immediate surveillance, trailing him until he came to a Riverside-area Walmart. Green was arrested while he was looking under the hood of a parked truck. Police also confiscated Bonaminio’s .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic pistol, which was in Green’s possession.

Police, however, did not say if Bonaminio’s gun was used to kill him.

Green, who is believed to have had an accomplice, is expected to be arraigned on Monday.