This is a cross post from my old-stomping grounds at It's a Crime. In case you're not a regular reader, check out what they've got over there-- there's some really amazing coverage that Jason and Rick put up in recent days.

In all the craziness at the scene yesterday, I ran into Councilman Dennis Zine, who was getting reports from the commanders and talking to his old colleagues. Often times at police events, politicians will gratuitously show up to get in on the limelight, but that was not the case here. Zine, whom we often note is an ex-LAPD motor cop, was truly shaken up and genuinely concerned.

He grabbed me and took me past the yellow tape, remembering officers Randal Simmons and James Veenstra along the way. He held nothing back.

We bumped into Capt. David Baca, commanding officer of the LAPD's emergency operations division. The two exchanged a hug, stepped back and took deep breaths.

"God, we had dinner just last week," Zine said, referring to S.W.A.T.'s annual get-together. "Now, he's dead.

Baca's friendship with Simmons, shot in the neck by the suspect and pronounced dead at the hospital, went back more than 20 years. They'd both worked undercover in the Southend and survived similar officer-involved-shootings as young cops. Simmons was a hero, Baca said, one the LAPD should remember as one of the greats.

"To lose the best of the best, God!" he exclaimed. "He was a real role model. The tragedy is the loss, but the value is the life he lived. That's what shone through. ...
"You hear gunfire, your normal person's instinct is to run the other way. Our SWAT officers run to the gunfire. They run toward the sound of the cannons."

He'd served in the Metropolitan Division that oversees S.W.A.T. years ago and said he was never prouder in his career than to get the assignment. He figured his old friend, a former college football player, chose S.W.A.T. for the same reason.

"You look up to them as the ultimate," Baca said. "That's why he did it, I'm sure. That's the kind of guy he was. ...
"S.W.A.T. officers will be grieving all over this nation. In the City of Angels, one of its finest angels has been shot down."