BADGE BOUND SLAIN OFFICER'S LIFE WAS FITTING PRELUDE TO HIS CHP SERVICE.

Byline: Wendy Thomas Russell Staff Writer

On the last day of his life, California Highway Patrol Officer Thomas J. Steiner slides into his Chevy Tahoe and heads to work from his home in Long Beach. It's shortly after 4 a.m. Wednesday, April 21.

In 20 minutes, he arrives at the Santa Fe Springs station, dresses for duty, pins on badge No. 15729 and starts the day.

Tom Steiner seemed destined to carry a badge.

As a child in Sterling, Va., he viewed things as black and white, right and wrong. When neighborhood kids gathered in the cul-de-sac to play baseball, Tom would soberly monitor the rules from first base. If the other kids tried to cheat even slightly, he would abruptly quit the game and refuse to return.

``He was pretty darn stubborn with just about everything,'' recalled his sister, Julie. ``If you weren't playing the way he wanted, he would just go inside and wouldn't play.''

Ron Steiner, their father, worked for computer and telecommunications companies. Their mother, Carol, worked as a nurse. In 1981, Ron's job carried the family to Ohio and, in 1984, to California. They settled in the Los Altos area of Long Beach - an area in which Julie and Tom would buy houses when they grew up.

Tom didn't believe in doing things halfway. He wasn't just computer- literate, he was a techie. He didn't just watch Ohio State football, he worshipped it.

And despite his insistence on playing by the rules, he played baseball with such enthusiasm he was an all-star, winning many awards.

Ready for duty, Steiner makes his daily stop in the CHP station's break room. He drops $1.25 into a vending machine for a lemon-lime Gatorade.

In the briefing area, he sits at a table and flips open his laptop. Officers file in. Steiner greets them, gulps down his Gatorade and takes a pinch of Copenhagen from a tin in front of him.

Chewing tobacco is a habit left over from his baseball years. It's his only vice.

To Tom Steiner, everything had a place and a purpose.

As a child and young adult, he kept his room neat and clean.

``He just wanted it to be right,'' his mother said.

Still, Tom's friends and family stop short of calling him a perfectionist. It's not that everything had to be perfect, they say. He was just particular. He liked what he liked, and he knew what he wanted.

Camaros and Texas sheet cake and fixing things. He didn't like being the center of attention.

At an early age, Carol Steiner says, Tom learned that premium items on restaurant menus carried no set price. Before he knew what lobster was, he was ordering it.

``If it said 'market price,''' Carol said, ``that's what he wanted.''

Whether it was toys, tools or the newest computerized gadgets, Tom liked the ``better things in life,'' Carol said.

``If it was a camera,'' Julie added, ``it was top of the line.''

One year, Tom gave his dad a tape measure - a yellow, handheld gadget with a keypad and screen. When pointed at an object, the gadget would digitally measure the distance.

Another year, Ron got a computerized temperature gauge. It continues to monitor the temperature in Ron and Carol's yard and house.

After the station briefing, Steiner walks out the back door and steps into his snow-white Crown Victoria, an unmarked patrol car designated for commercial-trucking officers. Police call the cars ``Polar Bears'' or ``Plain Wrappers.''

Alone, he drives east on the Pomona (60) Freeway near Diamond Bar. He likes patrolling the stretches northeast of Whittier, on the other side of the hills. His colleagues call him ``Over-the-Hill Steiner.''

Between 6 a.m. and noon, he tickets 10 truckers, mostly for speeding. And he helps three stranded motorists.

Tom's parents remember the time they sent their teenage son to an animal shelter to get a cat for the family.

Carol asked him to pick out a big, fat, fluffy cat she could curl up with on the couch.

Tom returned with the scrawniest, sickliest kitten Carol had ever seen. It sucked one of its paws compulsively and hid under furniture.

Bewildered, Carol asked for an explanation.

``Mom,'' he said, ``nobody was going to take this one.''

That's all Carol needed. They named the kitten Bandit and kept it for years.

``He kind of always had a soft spot for the underdog,'' Carol recalled.

Years later, when Tom began to bring home college girlfriends, Ron and Carol couldn't help but notice how troubled some of them seemed, too. Tom's natural desire to help, to fix, to heal, was resolute - even heroic.

Ron laughed at the memories: ``He selected some women in the same way he selected cats.''

Carol began to consider her son a ``closet social worker.''

Tom could also argue without raising his voice. ``He was always calm, no matter what,'' Julie said. ``Nothing really fazed him ... he figured that if he could talk calmly long enough, his point would be taken.''

Best friend Ron Keester recalled him this way: ``You could not argue with him because he could really turn things around on what you said. Being intelligent ... being stubborn, he would just never give up.''

After lunch, Steiner drives to the Pomona Courthouse on Mission Road to testify in traffic cases scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

It's a sunny day as he walks into the courthouse and enters Division 1 on the first floor. A dozen other CHP officers join him in the jury box.

At first, Tom's decision to become a CHP officer had made his mother uneasy.

He was in college at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, dabbling in psychology, real estate, business. He learned the CHP was looking for detail-oriented people with accounting majors, and Tom knew it was the right profession.

He told his parents he would get finish in accounting, then work in that field until a patrol position opened. Carol hoped he would change his mind. ``I tried to talk him out of it so many times.''

Tom would not be swayed.

Carol begrudgingly nodded her approval and asked him to stay off motorcycles at least. He agreed. Besides, his sister would say later, he didn't care about motorcycles; he cared about Camaros.

``He was just a good kid,'' Carol said, ``just my good, blue-eyed boy.''

Tom was 30 when the CHP hired him in April 1999. Three years later, his station acquired an unmarked 2002 Camaro for patrol use.

Tom had found his niche.

In Division 1, the traffic cases are handled quickly, and Steiner is only needed to testify in one.

About 2:30 p.m., Commissioner Marc Lauper calls him to the stand. The defendant was cited for following too closely in his vehicle. Steiner's testimony is brief, and Lauper rules against the driver.

Steiner steps off the witness stand and leaves the courthouse. He walks out the north-side doors on Mission Road, then turns south toward Seventh Street, back to his car.

It's been a long day, and Steiner is going home.

Tom had concrete ideas about living the American dream.

With a great job in the CHP, he now wanted a family, house and dog to go with it.

It might have been a coincidence, but to Tom, it felt a lot like fate when his high school sweetheart, whom he hadn't seen in years, came back into his life.

Tom and Heidi Stephens had been inseparable their junior and senior years at Millikan High School. She lived three doors down, and the alphabetical listings in the '86 and '87 yearbooks put the pair's pictures right next to each other: Tom Steiner and Heidi Stephens.

After graduation, he went to Cal Poly Pomona; Heidi married and had a son, Justin. A decade later, after Heidi's divorce and Tom's acceptance to the CHP, their paths crossed.

Ron remembers hearing about his son's reignited romance during a trip to the Nissan Los Angles Open golf tournament.

``Do you remember Heidi?'' Tom casually asked him.

``Yeah,'' Ron answered. ``My second daughter.''

``Well, we're back together - sort of,'' Tom said.

Ron paused. ``You gonna make it work this time?''

Both men laughed.

Heidi and Tom married in a private ceremony at Lake Arrowhead in 2000. A year later, Bryan was born.

Tom Steiner walks to the curb and pauses at a crosswalk to allow a red Nissan to pass.

The car slows to a stop, just yards from Steiner. The driver gets out. He has a handgun. Pop. Pop. Pop.

The shots echo off the courthouse walls.

Tom turns away from the gunfire. A single bullet enters the back of his skull, where his bulletproof vest can't protect him.

It is 2:50 p.m. A woman screams. Steiner falls to the ground. The shooter re-enters the car and speeds away.

Being a dad came naturally to Tom. He loved his stepson, whom he called J.T., and Bryan was ``his everything,'' friends say.

``It just engulfed him,'' Julie said. ``He had found everything that he needed.''

His buddy, CHP Officer Corey Baker, added: ``He was a very proud dad.''

In Tom's garage, which he converted into a game room with couches, a pool table, TV, mini-fridge and dartboard, both boys were welcomed guests. Tom set up two workbenches - a big one for himself, and a little one for Bryan.

And every Friday afternoon, he walked Bryan home from his nearby preschool. They would hold hands and talk. Being a dad was the best thing in his life.

In the parking lot of the Pomona Courthouse, CHP Officer Manny Barajas hears the familiar cracks of gunfire and drives toward the sounds.

Near a concrete wall, he sees boots and an officer's uniform. He calls over the radio: ``Officer down.''

Paramedics arrive and work quickly, trying to slow the loss of blood and keep Steiner's heart beating. They rush him to Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center.

With his parents and wife by his side, Steiner is pronounced dead. It's 6:59 p.m.

It's hard for the Steiner family to come to terms with what happened. There was so much left to chance. All his family can do is take comfort in knowing that as Tom stood at that crosswalk, he had the job of his dreams, the family he'd always wanted and the freedom to indulge in his passions and interests.

The next day, police arrest 16-year-old Valentino Mitchell Arenas of Pomona. They say he wanted to kill a cop - any cop - to impress a street gang he wanted to join.

Wendy Thomas Russell is a reporter at the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, a sister newspaper to the Daily News.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) A picture of slain Officer Tom Steiner hangs inside the entrance of the Santa Fe Station of the California Highway Patrol. Officials say a youth wanting to join a gang shot Steiner.

Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) STEINER