Highway Will Be Dedicated to Fallen CHP Officer

A short Central Valley highway will be dedicated to a former Santa Cruz County Calfornia Highway Patrol officer who killed in the line of duty nearly six years ago, the CHP announced this week.

Officer Earl Scott, graduate of North Monterey County High, will have State Highway 219 dedicated in his memory, the CHP reported.

Scott had been a CHP officer for five years when he was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Highway 99 south of Ripon on Feb. 17, 2006. The assailant was a driver who had been pulled over for speeding, the CHP reported.

Scott was born Oct. 22, 1969 in Banning. He attended North Monterey High School, graduating in 1988. Scott's father is a retired CHP sergeant, two of his uncles are retired highway patrolmen and he has a cousin who is a CHP officer in Stockton.

Scott, 36, was working for the Modesto Area CHP office at the time. He had worked in the Santa Cruz Area office as a rookie.

The man who shot Scott, Columbus Allen Jr. II, initially denied the charges and told authorities and the media that his car had been stolen. Allen later recanted his story and admitted he shot Scott with the intent to kill. Here's a timeline of the shooting and criminal case from the Modesto Bee newspaper.

Allen pleaded guilty in August and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Modesto Bee reported.

Once the court case was completed, the state Assembly designated a portion of Highway 219, a 5-mile-long road north of Modesto, as the "CHP Officer Earl Scott Memorial Highway." The road is better known as Kiernan Avenue in Salida, and is very close to the scene of the shooting.

The dedication ceremony will be 11 a.m. Feb. 17 at the Gallo Center for the Arts, 1000 I St. in Modesto.

Officer Scott is remember here, on the Officer Down Memorial Page website.