MacKay’s funeral at the San Manuel Amphitheater, attended by several thousand people, also was in the 32nd.
A leading candidate in next month’s special election for the 32nd was elsewhere: at a Capitol-area restaurant raising money for her Senate campaign.
Assemblyman Norma Torres, D-Pomona, held a $1,250-a-ticket lunchtime fundraiser that took place as, some 400 miles away, law enforcement colleagues and others eulogized MacKay as a hero who gave his life during a shootout with fugitive Christopher Dorner in the San Bernardino Mountains.
[UPDATE 6:30 P.M.: The Torres campaign released a statement saying the lawmaker should have been at MacKay's funeral. Here's the statement:
"Norma Torres should have been at the funeral for Detective Jeremiah MacKay. Clearly a scheduling error was made, for which Assembly member Torres is profoundly regretful. As a former 9-1-1 Emergency Dispatcher, Norma Torres feels a deep kinship with the law enforcement community and she extends her deepest sympathies to Officer MacKay’s family and to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department for their tragic loss."]
Attorney General Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and CHP Commissioner Joseph Farrow were among those who attended Thursday’s services.
Torres, a Los Angeles police dispatcher elected to the Assembly in 2008, is one of four Democrats running to succeed former state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, in the 32nd following Negrete McLeod’s November election to Congress.
The others are Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila, retired teacher Joanne Gilbert, and San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller Larry Walker. Two Republicans also are on the ballot: Ontario Mayor Paul Leon and Pomona planning commissioner Kenny Coble.
The Dorner manhunt and the four deaths linked to him have received nationwide coverage. Torres, though, was the second Inland lawmaker to hold a Sacramento fundraiser at the same time as ceremonies honoring Dorner’s law enforcement victims.
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