Procession held for Sacramento Deputy Adam Gibson, slain in Cal Expo shooting

Hundreds of law enforcement officers joined an emotional procession for Deputy Adam Gibson, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s K-9 officer killed in a shootout Monday at Cal Expo, as he was taken Friday morning from the coroner’s office to a local funeral home.

Gibson, 31 years old and a six-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, died at a hospital after the suspect in a brief vehicle pursuit opened fire on him, another deputy and a K-9. The dog was also killed, and the second deputy suffered serious injuries but is expected to recover.

Gibson leaves behind his wife, Rachel, and a 9-month-old daughter, as well as his parents and several siblings, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Motorcycle deputies and Sheriff’s Office patrol cruisers escorted Gibson’s body, in a white hearse topped with two small American flags, from the coroner’s office on Broadway in Sacramento. Deputies’ vehicles moved slowly down Stockton Boulevard, then traveled in a long line down the center lane of eastbound Highway 50, reaching their final destination of Miller Funeral Home in Folsom late Friday morning.

Gibson was remembered as a hero. He served two tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Sheriff’s Office awarded him a Bronze Star for Bravery and a Major Incident Ribbon in 2018.

It was a quick-acting Gibson in 2018 who helped safely rescue a possibly suicidal man who climbed over the fence of a Highway 99 overpass in Elk Grove. Gibson, ending a patrol shift, saw that happen and directed a tour bus to drive underneath the bridge, breaking the man’s fall and potentially saving his life.

“I caught him and we both fell on top of the bus,” Gibson told KCRA 3 in an exclusive interview shortly after the incident.

The dog shot by the suspect, identified as K-9 Riley, died at the scene. The second deputy who was struck, a 43-year-old department veteran of 13 years, was hospitalized with serious injuries but was expected to make a full recovery, sheriff’s officials said.

Riley was 5 years old and spent three of those years serving the Sheriff’s Office, officials said.

“Our handlers are focusing on the fallen family’s needs, the injured handler’s family’s needs and supporting teammates as we are (a) very close unit,” the Sacramento Sheriff K9 Association wrote in a statement to social media Wednesday.

The suspect in Monday’s shooting, identified by law enforcement sources, the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office and his mother as 46-year-old Robert Stephen Calderon, also died in the shootout.

After Calderon crashed his car in a parking lot on the east side of Cal Expo around 10 p.m. and would not comply with officers, deputies broke out his back window with a beanbag round. A K-9 handler deployed Riley; the suspect opened fire, killing the dog, and then “immediately” began shooting at the deputies, Sheriff Scott Jones said early Tuesday morning.

“Multiple” deputies returned fire, fatally striking Calderon, according to a later statement from the Sheriff’s Office.

Gibson was the first Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty since September 2018, when Deputy Mark Stasyuk was shot and killed at an auto parts store in Rancho Cordova in what Jones called an “extensive” firefight.

The Bee’s Jason Pierce contributed to this story.