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Law enforcement community mourns 2 Yorba Linda Marines killed in Afghanistan
The Southland's law enforcement community was gripped by grief today following the deaths in Afghanistan of two Marines from Yorba Linda - an LAPD SWAT officer and the son of a Santa Ana police sergeant.
Both men – Sgt. Major Robert J. Cottle, a 45-year-old LAPD veteran, and Lance Cpl. Rick Centanni, 19 – were killed Wednesday by the same roadside improvised explosive device while riding in an armored truck in southern Helmand Province. Two other Marines were seriously wounded.
Cottle and Centanni were traveling in an armored vehicle with two other Marines in Marja, an agricultural community dominated by opium farming in southwest Afghanistan, when their vehicle struck an IED.
Marja was seized from Taliban rebels in a major offensive last month.
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Cottle, who was assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department's elite Metropolitan Division, was the first active sworn member of the LAPD killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents the department's rank-and-file.
The two men's family members in Yorba Linda were informed of the deaths Wednesday.
Scores of LAPD officers who knew Cottle, including some who graduated with him from the Police Academy, were devastated when news of his death was reported Thursday.
Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said he had known Cottle for 20 years and was "deeply saddened."
"He is a fine man and a great example of the best LAPD has to offer," Beck said.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Cottle "will eternally remain a part of this department. His unwavering dedication to public service will undoubtedly live on as an example to future generations of officers."
Kenneth A. Cottle of Villa Park said his son had been due back from his tour of duty at the end of May. Cottle's wife, Emily, serves in the Navy in Hawaii. The two married about a year ago and have an 8-month-old daughter, Kaila Jane.
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Kenneth Cottle, an Air Force veteran, recalled his son was so eager to be a Marine that he tried to enlist when he was 17 but had to wait another year.
Cottle ended his active service in the Marine Corps in 1990, when he joined the LAPD, but he wanted to fight in Afghanistan, his father said. He had been there since last August.
Centanni also had local police ties. His father, Sgt. Jon Centanni, serves in the Santa Ana Police Department's gang unit, said Santa Ana police Detective Jose Becerra, a family friend.
Centanni joined the Marines right out of high school and aspired to be a cop just like his father, Becerra said.
Both Cottle and Centanni belonged to the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, based in Camp Pendleton.
Becerra, who thought of the young man like a nephew, recounted that when Centanni was 17, he stayed close to Becerra as his "honorary" uncle recuperated from surgery.
"He wouldn't leave my side," Becerra said. "I said, `Go, do what you need to do. It's summertime.' But he wouldn't leave until my wife came home."
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The bodies of Cottle and Centanni will be flown to Delaware and then to the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, probably next week, Kenneth Cottle said.
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