The State : Hidden Pistol Used in Suicide

A state police officer pulled out a hidden pistol and killed himself as he was being questioned in connection with an alleged child molestation case, officials said. Sacramento County sheriff’s detectives had confiscated Donald Herman’s service pistol and searched him after he was arrested at the state office building for questioning in a child molestation case involving a 12-year-old girl from Citrus Heights, near Sacramento, whose mother was an acquaintance of Herman. While he was being questioned, Herman shot himself in the head and died. Herman, 27, of Vallejo, had been a state police officer for 19 months. The second gun was missed during the search, said Curt Soderlund, special assistant to the director of the state General Services Administration, which oversees state police. Herman apparently had the pistol in an ankle holster.