Crime & Safety

CHP Officer Honored 77 Years After His Death

An officer who died in 1934 will be honored on Thursday.

It's been 77 years since Donald Hoover died at the end of his California Highway Patrol shift in 1934, but time has far from erased his memory from the consciousness of contemporary patrol officers. 

On Thursday, the anniversary of Hoover's death, the Santa Cruz CHP will lower its flag to half-mast, and all officers will wear Tribute of Mourning ribbons in remembrance.

On the evening of Aug. 31, 1934, Hoover was riding his motorcycle home on what is now Soquel Drive (then the Santa Cruz-Watsonville Highway).

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According to the CHP, as he reached Commercial Way (Slaughterhouse Curve in 1934), "a vehicle turned from an adjacent roadway into the path of Officer Hoover ... [who] struck the vehicle, rendering him unconscious, and he died a short time later from injuries he sustained in the collision."

Hoover was just 31. He had been with the CHP since he was 26, when his wife, Gladys, gave birth to their son, Richard. The Hoover family still lives in the Santa Cruz area. 

Find out what's happening in Capitola-Soquelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.


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