Of the four new U.S. Coast Guard cutters bound for duty in California next year, the Terrell Horne III was named after the 34-year-old officer murdered in 2012 off Santa Cruz Island. Horne died after his inflatable boat was intentionally rammed by a 30-foot panga manned by Jose Mejía-Leyva, of Ensenada, Mexico. Mejía-Leyva was sentenced to life in federal prison for second-degree murder; shipmate Manuel Beltrán-Higuera got 10 years as an accessory. The men were suspected of supplying gasoline to drug-smuggling boats. Based in San Pedro, the cutters will operate throughout California and in international waters off Mexico and Central America.

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