Suspect in fatal Riverside CHP shootout had a criminal record, but widow says ‘he wasn’t a monster’

A  man suspected of gunning down a California Highway Patrol officer in a freeway shootout in Riverside was on the phone with his wife moments before the killing, telling her he didn’t want to go to jail because that would mean he couldn’t support her or the eight children they raised together, she said in an interview Tuesday, Aug. 13.

Aaron Luther of Beaumont called his wife, McKenzie Luther, shortly after the CHP pulled him over Monday, saying he had been driving alone in the carpool lane with an expired license and no registration — and with a rifle he couldn’t legally own because of his felony record, she said. He told her they planned to impound the car and he needed a ride, she said.

She was just pulling off the 215 Freeway near Eastridge and Eucalyptus avenues when she heard the “pop pop pop” of bullets, she said. One flew through the windshield of the car she was driving with her children, said McKenzie Luther, who has scratches and a black eye that she said came from the shootout.

Aaron Luther, 49, is accused of pulling out a large rifle and shooting at officers from the CHP and other agencies. Authorities say he killed Officer Andre Moye Jr. and wounded two others before police shot him to death.

She’s not sure what prompted him to grab the rifle. Despite wanting to support the family, he was depressed, she said.

“Maybe it was suicide by cop,” she said, crying. “He wasn’t out to kill cops. … I’m so sorry for the officer (who Luther killed). I know his family is going through the same thing I am.”

She pushed back against a statement by Aaron Luther’s father, Dennis Luther, in which he said the couple was facing marital problems.

“We’ve been together 14 years — of course we have problems,” she said, sitting on the porch of the Beaumont home they shared, next to a front door with a ripped screen. “He told me the night before he loved me. He loved our kids.”

Two of her children, who range in age from 2 to 24, are biologically his, but he loved and supported all of them, she said.

He liked playing paintball with them when his knees allowed it, and she knew he had guns, but didn’t know what kind, she said. Police have described the weapon used in the shooting only as a rifle.

His knees hurt, making construction work difficult, but he’d just gotten a new job at Malcolm Drilling in Irwindale, she said. Malcolm Drilling confirmed he’d been hired.

McKenzie Luther said her husband was not a member of the Vagos motorcycle gang, as the Los Angeles Times reported earlier. The Times later reported that, while investigators had initially thought he had ties, federal experts familiar with the Vagos say he is not a member.

She added he was not a racist. He did what he had to in prison, where “the whites are with the whites and the Mexicans are with the Mexicans,” but he was friendly with Latinos, including her Latino children, she said.

“He wasn’t a monster,” she said. “People should know — I think it was random and I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

Dennis Luther said his son had been in mental and physical pain as he struggled with his marriage and his ability to earn a living.

“He felt like his life was being taken away from him,” Dennis said outside his Jurupa Valley home Tuesday.

But why his son turned a rifle on officers, he said he didn’t know.

Aaron Luther’s life, which began spiraling downward with the use of illegal drugs as a teen, also ended Tuesday when officers fired back.

Luther was paroled from state prison in 2004 after serving about 10 years of a 12-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder with an enhancement for the use of a firearm, first-degree burglary and second-degree burglary in Los Angeles County, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was discharged from parole in 2007, according to the department.

West Covina police said he confronted them during the incident that resulted in the 12-year sentence, and he was charged with assault on a peace officer. He was not sentenced on that charge.

He was charged with multiple felonies in San Bernardino County and pleaded no contest in 2010 to assault with a deadly weapon, the records show.

His father said he got his son work in construction, building bridges. But the pain in both knees made it difficult to work.

“It’s rough, rough work and being crippled, it’s hard. He couldn’t hardly earn a living any more. He was in a lot of pain,” said Dennis Luther, 71. “I’ve had both knees replaced. I know what he was feeling.”

He tried to get his son to tap into union health benefits to get treatment for his knees.

Luther said his son was living with his wife and three pre-teen children in Beaumont off and on.

“I think he couldn’t cope with his marital problems,” he added. But the children “were everything to him.”

Aaron Luther was a top-notch skateboarder growing up in Covina and knew all the stars, including legend Tony Hawk. But he began using speed, his father said.

“And that’s what ruined him. I’m devastated,” Luther said.

He said he prayed for the injured officers before he prayed for his son.

“No one deserves what happened to them,” Luther said. “And if (Aaron) went and did that, he got what he deserved. You don’t go doing that kind of stuff and expect to walk home. He obviously lost it somehow or another. I wished he would have called me. I didn’t get that opportunity.”

Trying to hold back tears, Dennis Luther said he was grieving for police, as well as his son.

“We’re standing behind law enforcement,” Dennis Luther said in an interview with KTLA. “I sent a prayer for the police before I did for my son. …

“I’m reminiscing now about when he was 8 years old, when I bought him his first skateboard,” the father said.

Staff writers Josh Cain and Jonah Valdez contributed to this story.