Officer Simmons: the cop as good guy

In the volatile world of the street, cops haven't always been the good guys.

They've been known to apply brute force as a form of justice in the shadowy confines of downtown alleys and to quell peaceful protests with swinging truncheons.

We've seen them get away with videotaped crimes against civilians, and we've seen their militaristic units turn into undisciplined mobs.

Instances of racism and sadism once stained cops' badges, making a mockery of a call to respect and support them when their brothers were killing black people in the South and challenging the right of peaceful assembly in the North.

But things have changed.

It doesn't take a cultural anthropologist to see new attitudes emerging in the police departments of Southern California, including L.A.

Racial and ethnic diversity is obvious in their ranks and grievous errors of conduct are rarely excused.

Do moments of brutality still emerge among the men and women committed to protect and serve? Of course. Even the best of training doesn't always mute the instincts of those who don't deserve to wear the blue uniform in the first place.

But for every bad cop who punches out a guy on the ground or shoots before he thinks, there's always a man like Randal Simmons.

He has come to symbolize what cops are all about.

Simmons was the 51-year-old SWAT team veteran whose unit, because they thought that lives were imperiled inside a house under siege, joined fellow officers in raiding the building. Simmons was shot dead by a mentally disturbed man who had already killed his father and two brothers on that violent day in Winnetka, who was then himself brought down by a police sniper.

Much has been made of the fact that Simmons was the first officer killed in action in the 40-year history of the nationally respected LAPD SWAT team. The term "hero" has been applied many times in respect to his devotion to a duty that ended his life. Some say that he deliberately jumped in front of a wounded partner to prevent the man from being shot a second time. The partner, James Veenstra, survived a bullet in the face.

Simmons is a hero either way. And if a more thorough investigation proves that he sacrificed his own life to save another, then the obvious protocol for a higher heroism applies. But there's a more subtle application to the term too. A policeman knows that every time he enters a house under siege, his life is at risk -- but he does it anyhow.