The man convicted in the ambush killing of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department at a Palmdale stoplight faces sentencing Thursday in the fourth-generation law enforcement officer’s murder.

Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, ??, was shot and killed Sept. 16, 2023 as he waited in his patrol SUV near the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station. Clinkunbroomer had been engaged to be married four days earlier.

Kevin Eduardo Cataneo Salazar, 32, is facing a life prison term without the possibility of parole for the shooting in the high desert community north of Los Angeles. He was convicted Aug. 24 of first-degree murder. Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer, lying in wait and firing from a vehicle, along with allegations that he personally used and discharged a .22-caliber revolver.

Special circumstances allegations can increase potential penalties at sentencing.

The panel also found that Salazar was sane at the time of the crime. He would have been sent to a state mental hospital for treatment if jurors had found that he was legally insane.

Defense attorney George Rosenstock is asking Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen to grant a new trial for the sanity portion of the case, writing in a court filing that the judge should independently weigh the evidence the jury heard and consider both sides, including

Prosecutors Michael Blake and David Ayvazian countered in their response that “the defendant proved that he suffered from serious mental illness, but that “he did not prove that he was legally insane at the moment he killed Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer.”

During the trial, prosecutors said Salazar had aspired to kill a law enforcement officers.

Family, friends and law enforcement professionals honored Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Clinkunbroomer was shot and killed in Palmdale while on patrol. Alex Rozier reports for the NBC4 News on Oct. 5, 2023.

Salazar, a Palmdale resident, entered a dual plea of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with the killing. An attorney for Salazar said in his opening statement that the trial would not focus on whether his client fire the shot, but whether the defendant was insane at the time.

Salazar’s attorney argued that his client wasn’t targeting law enforcement officers. Defense attorney George Rosenstock argued his client’s thoughts appear to be “somewhat disorganized” and that the decision to kill was made within seconds. He argued that the panel should reject the allegations of premeditated and deliberated murder and lying in wait.

Both Ayvazian and Rosenstock described the defendant’s apparently irrational behavior on the day of the killing and two days earlier when he was “driving around confronting complete strangers,” the defense lawyer said.

Ayvazian told jurors that following his arrest, Salazar told two undercover operatives in jail during a surreptitiously recorded conversation that he had wanted to kill a police officer for years and described following officers, parking and waiting and playing music to prepare himself.

At a June 2024 hearing in which Salazar was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Detective Gustavo Carrillo testified that Salazar acknowledged his involvement in the shooting during questioning at the Palmdale sheriff’s station by detectives two days after the killing. Salazar told investigators that he felt bad and “cried for the (expletive) officer,” according to the detective.

Under cross-examination by Salazar’s attorney at the preliminary hearing, the detective acknowledged that when asked why he had shot the deputy, Salazar responded that it had “started a long time ago before COVID” and that he “began to hear voices in his head.”

A deputy medical examiner concluded Clinkunbroomer died from a single gunshot that entered the back of his head.

After the shooting, investigators used surveillance video footage to identify a vehicle believed to be a Toyota Corolla and then to ask the public to come forward with any information about the vehicle, prosecutors said.

Ayvazian said that among those who contacted investigators was a driver who testified that he took a photo of the license plate of a vehicle whose driver had aggressively confronted him about seven minutes before authorities believe Clinkunbroomer was shot. The driver identified Salazar in court during the 2024 hearing as the person who confronted him.

The deputy was honored in January with the Castaic Sports Complex being renamed the Ryan M. Clinkunbroomer Castaic Sports Complex. A stretch of road also will be named after him.