Randal Simmons

To many children who have so little, Officer Randy meant so much. He brought them bicycles at Christmas. He took them to Dodgers games and McDonald's. He got them new shoes for school. He invited them to day camp for a swim and slipped their parents money for groceries. Nearly every weekend he visited lower income neighborhoods from Carson to Watts to South-Central, as part of a church group he founded -- Glory Kids Ministries -- to steer youngsters from gangs and toward the gospels.

Funeral services were held Friday for Officer Randal Simmons, 51, of the Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT team, who was fatally shot Feb. 7 during a standoff at a Winnetka house, where a gunman killed three family members. A police sniper killed the gunman. The Times' Homicide Report blog and message boards have received more than 600 comments from readers expressing their feelings about Simmons' death.

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.

The lone surviving brother of the youth who shot and killed LAPD SWAT Officer Randal Simmons expressed his condolences to the officer's family Tuesday and said his brother had been depressed. But Wilfredo Rivera, 27, said he could not explain the events that left his father, three brothers and Simmons dead. SWAT Officer James Veenstra was wounded in the incident. "The family is at a loss," said Rivera, an air-conditioning installer who had married and moved from the family home in Winnetka.

A team of 30 SWAT officers will run a torch relay during Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon in tribute to Randal Simmons, the SWAT officer killed Feb. 7 in a shootout in Winnetka. Simmons' 15-year-old son, Matt, will run the final 1.2 miles with the officers. They hope to raise money to fund Matt's education and that of his 12-year-old sister, Gabrielle, who will stand at the finish line with Simmons' widow, Lisa.

The idea was to honor Randal Simmons, the first Los Angeles SWAT officer killed in the line of duty, by naming a new high school after him. Not just any high school, but one serving the students of Carson, the city where he was a church minister and where he spent hours mentoring youths, trying to keep them from gangs. The head of the Los Angeles Unified School District's teachers union sent a letter supporting the idea, and so did Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton.