On July 22, 1957, Officers Richard Allen Phillips and Milton Gus Curtis were killed during a routine traffic stop in El Segundo, California. The officers had stopped a car for running a red light; the driver, who had just committed several violent crimes that included the rape of a teenage girl and the armed robbery of two couples, opened fire while the officers were writing a ticket and both men were killed instantly.

Richard Allen Phillips was 28, a white male, survived by his wife and three children. Milton Gus Curtis was 25 and had been with the agency about two months; he left a widow and two young children. The case went cold until January 29, 2003, when advances in fingerprint analysis tied Gerald Mason to fingerprints from the 1957 scene. Mason had a bullet-shaped scar on his back consistent with a wound officer Phillips had inflicted, later confessed, and was convicted on March 24, 2003, receiving a life sentence.

Anyone who knew either officer or has memories of El Segundo in 1957 is invited to share information or recollections that might shed further light on this long-closed case.