Word: atkinson
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...first officer on the scene is Masino, whose wife had not wanted him on the street today. He kicks a hole in the passenger window, unlocks the door and tries to revive Atkinson with help from another officer. She is Patricia Johnson, Atkinson's best friend on the force--the one who had lent him the book on street survival. Atkinson has taken two bullets in the right side of his head. Says Masino, 28: "It's almost like Marc's spirit was standing there next...
...worlds, one the color of his uniform and the other the color of his skin, and he knows those worlds have collided on this horrible day. A day in which a brilliant, falling sun glints across the sprawling desert city, catching the top of the utility pole that Atkinson plowed into and casting the shadow of a perfect cross onto the side of a building across the street...
...retraces Atkinson's route, wheeling through the last moments of his life, Davila comes upon the shrine where the officer died. Davila had tried, in his quiet way, to live beyond the stereotypes that divide police and community, white and Hispanic. And now there were people out there stirring it up, the vultures and hacks, politicizing Atkinson's death before he was in the ground. At the spot where the afternoon sun still draws a cross on the wall, Davila's spirit breaks again. "You had people calling the radio talk shows to take their shots. It started with illegal...
...Martinez, 59, has been on block watch for 18 years in the neighborhood where Atkinson worked and died. "You see this older woman out front? She's undercover. Reports everything to us." Martinez works for the recreation department. The friends who ride civilian posse with him work construction jobs and return to their well-kept homes each day with aching backs and cracked hands, and then they take turns pulling night duty, trying to pass pride of ownership and safe streets on to the grandchildren. "We've been burglarized 10 times, and nobody ever sees a vehicle or a person...
...last line of defense against the barbarians is filing into the briefing room at the Maryvale Precinct, home to 229 sworn officers. Marc Atkinson's old squad is just beginning its 3:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. shift. Sergeant Pete Fenton tells them about a fresh homicide and about a tree that will be planted in Marc's honor out front. A chalkboard advisory warns against dining at a certain fast-food joint because a cook with a grudge, just out of jail, is bound to add special ingredients to any cop's dinner...