The police officers arrived by the thousands -- members of a family bound not by blood, but by a uniform and a badge.
They were joined by countless other mourners Friday, inside a cavernous South Los Angeles church and throughout the region, to honor slain Los Angeles Police Officer Randal Simmons. The 51-year-old officer was remembered as a deeply religious man, devoted husband, caring father and model cop in a tearful three-hour funeral service.
Simmons was shot and killed last week during a tense standoff with a San Fernando Valley gunman who already had killed three members of his family. He is the first member of the city's elite Special Weapons and Tactics unit to be killed in the line of fire since its start nearly 40 years ago.
Ten thousand people -- most of them police and other law enforcement officers -- filled the Crenshaw Christian Center's Faith Dome on Vermont Avenue. The funeral, attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other elected and civic officials, was the largest in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Simmons' death reverberated throughout Southern California. Television stations carried the funeral live and uninterrupted for hours. Thousands of people lined closed city streets to watch as the hearse traveled to the Culver City cemetery where Simmons would be buried. At Slauson Avenue near Angeles Vista Boulevard, several hundred people, including the elderly and preschool students holding their parents' hands, remained long after the hearse had passed. Some applauded. Others held "Thank You" signs.
Villaraigosa, whose children Simmons had once guarded, acknowledged to mourners that the death had hit the community hard.
"It touches a particular nerve way deep in our souls, and it hurts," Villaraigosa said. "I've thought a lot over the last few days about why that is, and I think it has something to do with the fact that the entire city community loses when we lose a police officer."
A video montage played at the service highlighted the many aspects of Simmons' life, from childhood through fatherhood, including his work on the streets of inner-city neighborhoods where he ministered to children on weekends. Images of an intimidating, chiseled officer carrying heavy weapons in the midst of missions were set off by others that hinted of a man at ease and with a sense of humor. In one, he was seen hamming for the camera as he and his longtime partner, Officer James Veenstra, playfully put handcuffs on Santa Claus.
