By Joel Rubin and Paloma Esquivel
The Los Angeles Times
Related: SWAT officer fatally shot in Calif. shootout
LOS ANGELES — In an emotional funeral service shared by thousands of mourners -- both inside the South L.A. church where it was held and throughout the region where it was carried live on local television -- slain SWAT Officer Randal Simmons was praised today as a man of God who is now “patrolling the streets of heaven.”
Simmons, 51, 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 SWAT officer to be killed in the line of fire in the unit’s nearly 40-year history. The funeral was one of the largest in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Simmons was remembered in a ceremony that lasted more than 2 1/2 hours, coming to a close shortly after 1:30 p.m.
Speaker after speaker recounted memories of a man who they said was an outstanding husband and father, a loyal teammate and a model police officer who devoted countless time to at-risk children.
“ ‘I’ll take care of it, I’ll take care of it,’ ” his sister Gina Davis recalled her brother saying time after time.
“I’m going to miss those words,” she told the nearly 10,000 people gathered in the Crenshaw Christian Center’s FaithDome. “He walked with the confidence of knowing he was capable of protecting you.”
In one of the most emotional moments of the service, Basil Kimbrew walked off the stage at the center of the sanctuary-in-the-round to give an old framed photograph of Simmons to James Veenstra, whose face was still swollen from the bullet he took to the jaw in the attack that killed his longtime partner.
“That’s how Randy was,” said Kimbrew, who was Simmons’ college roommate at Washington State University, where both men played football. “Randy always gave, he would always give before he gave to himself.”
As the song “Because You Loved Me” played throughout the FaithDome, a video montage highlighted the many aspects of Simmons’ life, from his childhood through fatherhood, to his work on the streets of inner-city neighborhoods ministering to children.
“He is now patrolling the streets of heaven,” said one of his sisters-in-law, who gave her name as Cookie.
On the day he married her sister, Cookie recalled Simmons’ chiseled features dissolving into tears as he watched his bride, Lisa, walk down the aisle.
“He must have thought he saw a goddess,” she said.
“He could catch bullets with his mouth but he would break down on the streets,” with the children he wanted to help, said Patrick Davis who worked with Simmons through Glory Kids, the youth ministry that the veteran officer founded more than a decade ago with his own money.
Police Chief William J. Bratton, who spoke earlier in the service, said: “No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child. If that is the case, then Randy was truly a giant.”
Simmons’ teenage son, Matthew, recalled praying as a family on the night his father was killed.
“He’s the best father any child could possibly have,” said Matthew in brief remarks that drew a standing ovation from the mourners.
Los Angeles police officers had carried Simmons’ flag-draped casket into the church shortly after 11 this morning, as Matthew watched with his mother and sister.
Scores of law enforcement officials from across the nation stood at attention in their dress uniforms as the pallbearers slowly walked the body of their comrade through the black glass doors of the church.
A bagpiper played. Children who had been counseled by Simmons through his youth ministry walked behind his family members.
The services, which are being carried live by local news outlets, began with a song: a soulful rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose children Simmons had guarded, spoke first, noting that the loss of Simmons 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.”
Earlier, colleagues from Simmons’ police division took turns standing guard at the white hearse that carried his body to the funeral service shortly before 8:30 a.m.
In the parking lot in the hours before the ceremony began, officers from around the nation embraced each other and clasped hands, many dipping into a large envelope to grab a small, laminated photo of Simmons that they clipped onto their uniforms.
By 9 a.m., the front of the church seemed like a sea of blue as hundreds of officers arrived. Three officers from Jackson, N.J., in their light blue jackets and hats, stood out from the dark shade of the LAPD officers. A group of SWAT officers who had made the trip from Anchorage, Alaska, waited beneath a tree that swayed in a cool morning breeze. “Support,” one said when asked why they had made the trip.
Simmons had been on the police force for 27 years, 20 of them in the elite SWAT unit that specializes in hostage situations and other high-risk confrontations. He was fatally shot in the early morning of Feb. 7 by a mentally-troubled man, who had called 911 to report that he had killed three members of his family.
Simmons was among the SWAT unit members who broke through the front door of the man’s San Fernando Valley home, believing that victims might still be alive inside. He was struck in the neck by a round that lodged in his brain stem and was pronounced dead about 1 a.m. that day at a nearby hospital.
His colleague, Veenstra, 51, was critically wounded in the attack and will need multiple surgeries to repair his jaw in the coming months, authorities have said.
The suspected shooter, Edwin Rivera, 20, was shot to death by a police sniper as he tried to flee his home -- which had caught fire, presumably after tear-gas canisters were launched to force him out -- more than 10 hours after the standoff began.
Police said Rivera, who was armed with a handgun and a shotgun, also killed his father, Gerardo Rivera, 54, and brothers, Edgar Rivera, 21, and Endi Rivera, 25. Two of the three were found with gunshot wounds to their heads. The third body was too badly burned to confirm the cause of death, police said.
Hours after the officers were attacked in the home, a woman ran from the house to safety.
In the days since Simmons’ death, he has been praised as a model officer whose work in the community extended far beyond his job on the force. Eleven years ago, he founded the Glory Kids outreach ministry, and worshipers at Glory Christian Fellowship International in Carson said he routinely devoted at least part of three days each week to the church. Glory Kids now serves about 1,000 children a month, said church spokeswoman Melissa Franklin.
Simmons is survived by his wife, son and a daughter.
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times