Davis police to honor Natalie Corona 7 years after fatal shooting this Saturday
The Davis Police Department will hold a public ceremony and moment of silence Saturday to honor Officer Natalie Corona, nearly seven years after the 22-year-old rookie was fatally shot while responding to a routine call in downtown Davis.
The remembrance is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Jan. 10 in front of the Davis Police Department and will mark the anniversary of Corona’s death.
Corona was shot and killed the evening of Jan. 10, 2019, while investigating a minor traffic collision near Fifth and D streets. Police said a gunman arrived on a bicycle, opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun and fled, prompting an overnight manhunt. The suspect was found dead the next morning from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
She was the first Davis police officer killed in the line of duty in nearly 60 years.
Corona had graduated from the Sacramento Police Academy just months earlier and had completed field training only weeks before the shooting. She began working with the Davis Police Department as a community service officer shortly after graduating from high school and continued with the department even after funding for her position lapsed.
Family members described Corona as “hard-working” and “humble,” traits they said guided her decision to follow her father into law enforcement. She grew up in Arbuckle, where her father, Merced Corona, served 26 years with the Colusa County Sheriff’s Office.
Her death shook the small farming town, where many residents knew her and her family well.
Corona’s killing sent shockwaves across Northern California and led to multiple tributes from local and state agencies. In 2019, California designated a stretch of Interstate 5 in Colusa County as the Officer Natalie Corona Memorial Highway, and the Davis Police Department awarded her a posthumous Purple Heart.In August, the city of Davis named a splash pad for Corona in a city park. Yolo County dedicated a bus in Corona’s honor, and the Sacramento Police Department named a helicopter after her.
Corona’s killer, Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48, was ordered to surrender his firearms months before the shooting after a physical fight with a coworker. Police found two firearms when they searched Limbaugh’s house, where he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The firearms were not registered to Limbaugh.
