Saturday, March 28, 2009
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The city virtually halted Friday for the funeral of four slain police officers, with a populace still in shock jamming a large sports arena, spilling into an overflow stadium and filling the streets to pay their last respects.
The funerals for Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai, who authorities say were gunned down March 21 by a parolee, shut down major freeways into and out of Oakland for much of the day as their long processions made their way to and from the Oracle Arena.
The shootings were the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest in California in nearly four decades. A somber pageant of uniformed officers from law enforcement agencies across the country — police departments, sheriffs’ offices, highway patrols — overwhelmed the arena.
The entire 815-member Oakland Police Department, wearing dress white caps and gloves and black mourning bands on their badges, filled the front rows, saluting their fallen brethren as their flag-draped caskets were carried inside.