Marysville remembers and mourns a year after Officer Osmar Rodarte’s killing

The morning was bright and mostly quiet throughout Marysville, looking much like it had the same day a year before.

On that day, law enforcement officers and sheriff’s deputies dispersed throughout the Yuba-Sutter area and beyond on a spring morning, executing search warrants to find and arrest suspected drug-traffickers.

This week, law enforcement — including some of those same officers — converged at Veterans Park in Marysville, to honor the officer lost during that sprawling operation a year ago.

More than a hundred people, many of them cops of different local stripes, gathered Thursday morning at the Marysville park to pay their respects and recognize the service of Marysville police Officer Osmar Rodarte, whose service ended March 26, 2025, when he was killed in a shootout inside an Olivehurst home. He was 27.

A Marysville police squad car parked at the center of the park lawn blared a radio call for Rodarte’s badge No. 308 at 8:42 a.m., when the young officer was pronounced dead.

“Officer Rodarte was tragically taken from us on this day after serving the city of Marysville for two years and his country prior to that in the United States Army,” the radio operator said. “Gone but never forgotten, may he rest in peace. Thank you for your service. We have the watch from here.”

Family members of Rodarte, including his two sons, attended the service. Cries from the group were heard over the sounds of the end-of-watch call booming through the park.

Marysville Mayor Chris Branscum stood before the crowd and looked through sunglasses toward the grieving family.

“I see the family,” Branscum said, speaking to the loss felt by relatives and community members.

“My heart really goes out to the parents,” he added. “There’s no stronger love than a parent for a child.”

William Curry, a local student and member of an outdoor leadership program, led the effort to create and place three metal-fabricated benches dedicated to Rodarte throughout Marysville. He unveiled one of the benches at Veterans Park. The other two will be located at the Marysville police station.

“Officer Rodarte could have done many things with his life, but he chose law enforcement,” Curry said. “He chose to wear the badge. He chose to go toward danger rather than away from it.”

The death of Rodarte shook the Northern California town of about 12,000, marking the city’s first officer killed in the line of duty in more than a century.

Rodarte and a Yuba County Sheriff’s Office sergeant last fall were cleared of wrongdoing by Yuba County District Attorney Clint Curry, who found that the duo, part of a larger tactical team at one of several sweeps during the multi-county operation, acted in self-defense. Rick David Oliver, the man who exchanged gunfire with Rodarte, was also killed in the shootout.

The community rallied soon after Rodarte’s death to say farewell at a solemn procession through the streets of Marysville, from which his body was transported to a funeral home in Placer County. A memorial service followed a couple of weeks later at Hard Rock Live near Wheatland. In the year since, the city has renamed a street in his honor, with the three commemorative benches joining the remembrances to the fallen officer around town.

“Officer Rodarte died for me, and for you, and for the person standing next to you,” Curry said. “We can’t forget his courage and sacrifice.”