THE CONVICTED murderer of a Garden Grove police officer in 1980 died in San Quentin State Prison’s death row of unknown causes on Sunday (Shutterstock).

The man convicted of the 1980 murder of a Garden Grove police officer has died of unknown causes, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Condemned inmate John George Brown, 71, was found unresponsive in his San Quentin State Prison cell on Sunday, at 6:18 p.m.

JOHN GEORGE BROWN (Dept. of Corrections photo).

Custody and medical staff performed CPR; however, Brown was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. He had been on California’s death row since June 17, 1982.

Brown was sentenced to death in Orange County on June 11, 1982, for the June 7, 1980, murder of Garden Grove Police Department Officer Donald F. Reed. Reed, who was 27 years old, was fatally shot when Brown opened fire on him and two other police officers that had tried to serve him a felony arrest warrant. Brown was convicted of first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder, and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

Reed was one of five GGPD officers who have been killed in the line of duty since the department was founded in 1957.