Guard remembers slain cops

by Katy Knapp

Daily Lobo

Mike King celebrated his 49th birthday last year by driving his motorcycle to San Diego with a friend and jumping into the Pacific Ocean.

"Then they got some coffee and came back to New Mexico," said Connie Kawcak, a longtime friend and neighbor of King.

King and officer Richard Smith, 46, were killed Thursday during a shootout at 1521-1/2 Gold SE. They were responding to a mental health pickup order for John Hyde, which was put out by Kaseman Hospital, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Kawcak, a security guard at UNM Hospital, said she grew up with King in Albuquerque.

She said King, 50, was a daredevil who had a large group of friends from all walks of life.

"He loved people. He knocked himself out for people," she said. "I don't think you'd even find a criminal who would say anything bad about him."

Kawcak also knew Smith. He retired from the Albuquerque Police Department in December 2000 and worked in security at UNM Hospital before deciding he wanted to work in the community again.

Smith was rehired at APD on June 12, 2004.

"It's like a dual tragedy for me," Kawcak said. "We loved him at UNMH. I didn't want him to leave."

Hyde, 48, appeared in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court on Saturday for a video hearing where the judge ordered he be held without bond. Hyde pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder.

Hyde is also charged with killing two other men at Rider Valley Motor Cross on Thursday. Garrett Iversen, 22, and David Fisher, 17, were shot while working in the shop, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Smith and King retired from the force and came back last year to work for APD again.

"They couldn't give it up," police chief Ray Schultz said at a press conference Friday. "They wanted to come back and continue to contribute to our community."

Schutlz said the mental health call is supposed to be simple.

"We just never would expect something like this would happen," he said. "They didn't know there was a monster waiting there."

All details of the shootings aren't known yet, Schultz said, but detectives are working around the clock to figure out the exact order of events.

"I commit to you that we will find out what happened and why it happened," he said.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, King and Smith were transported to UNM Hospital shortly after the shootings, where they were declared dead.

Kawcak said King's funeral will be held Tuesday and Smith's funeral will be Wednesday, where they both will receive a full military honor.

King had a wife, Debbie, and two boys, Kawcak said.

"Debbie is having a hard time," she said. "It's just been a whirlwind."

Kawcak said she never worried about the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound King being a police officer.

"I thought he was invincible - it seemed like he was," she said. "He came out of so many things unscathed."