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Every network owned TV station in Los Angeles plus KTLA has switched live to the Simmons funeral. Channel 4 handled the bringing in of the casket nicely: no talking. Just bagpipes.
The funeral opens with a standing ovation "for a life well-lived."
Mayor Villaraigosa takes the stage at 11:30 am, and begins by talking about the wounded officers he has visited: "This is the first time that I've had to suffer the loss of a police officer. It touches a particular nerve, way deep in our souls. And it hurts....the entire city loses when we lose a police officer."
Villaraigosa zings "the newspapers" for only telling the truth about the LAPD in obituaries. As if the rank and file officers like him — a former president of the ACLU here — all that much.
Chief Bill Bratton takes the mic at 11:39. His acknowledgment of former chief Daryl Gates draws a big standing ovation from the uniforms. "Appropriate and deserved," Bratton says. Injured SWAT officer Jim Veenstra is in the audience, Bratton says.
Basil Kimbrew, Simmons' roommate at Washington State, calls up other members of the football team who either went to the NFL or into police work. "He's the reason I got my college degrees," says Kimbrew, the former Compton official.
12:03: A video plays showing scenes from Simmons' life. Hard moment for his family and friends, I suspect.
12:16: Former partner James Hart takes the podium and lightens the mood by noting a video scene of him and Simmons sleeping. "Chief...he ordered me to meditate." Hart says he never had a brother, "but Randy was my older brother." He also promises Simmons' daughter that she will have many uncles watching over her.
Hart says fellow officers called Simmons The Reverend for his grasp of scripture, but suspects would see him coming — body "chiseled out of ivory" — and say "Jesus Christ!"
Hart: "He represented what a man, father, husband ought to be."
12:50: Following Simmons' sister and sisters in law, his son Matthew walks to the podium and takes a deep breath. Pastor Alton Trimble keeps a hand on his shoulder as Matthew begins speaking, then steps away. Matthew says they prayed around his father's bed before the SWAT operation last week. "I miss him so much, but I'm sure he is still watching me all the time....We all should follow my father's legacy."
12:59: Denise Beaudoin speaks for the family and thanks everyone, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver in the audience. Channel 4 runs a banner line informing viewers that today's "Days of Our Lives" will air tomorrow at 3:05 am.
1:22: Trimble is preaching about "Randy's Jesus," but promises to wind up in a couple of minutes.
1:35: An LAPD detail is removing the casket from the church in silence as the uniformed officers in the pews salute. The procession will drive up Vermont and west on Slauson to the cemetery. The service ran about 80 minutes over, so adjust times on the street closures and bus route disruptions.
* Updated during the funeral