Trump offers condolences to family of slain Calif. officer

President Trump spoke over the phone on Thursday with the family of Cpl. Ronil Singh, a Newman, Calif. police officer who was shot and killed by a man suspected to be in the U.S. illegally last month.

The White House announced Thursday in a statement that Trump had spoken with “family and law enforcement colleagues” of the fallen officer, who was shot after pulling over a man for a DUI stop in December.

{mosads}“This afternoon, President Trump spoke with the family and law enforcement colleagues of fallen Newman, California, police officer Ronald “Ron” Singh.

The President praised Officer Singh’s service to his fellow citizens, offered condolences, and commended law enforcement’s rapid investigation, response, and apprehension of the suspect,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

The call to Singh’s family comes six days after the chief suspect in his killing, Gustavo Perez Arriaga, was apprehended by law enforcement following a two-day manhunt.

Singh himself was an immigrant from Fiji, a fact local law enforcement officials noted in statements following his death calling for Arriaga’s capture.

“This suspect, unlike Ron — who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong career of public safety, public service and being a police officer — this suspect is in our country illegally,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said at a press conference last week. “He doesn’t belong here. He’s a criminal.”

Trump previously weighed in on the shooting last week, invoking it in a tweet calling for his plan for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“There is right now a full scale manhunt going on in California for an illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing a police officer during a traffic stop. Time to get tough on Border Security. Build the Wall!” the president tweeted last Thursday.