There were police officers from nearby towns and far-away cities. Combat veterans and young children. Family members and strangers, gathered in a line that seemed to grow endlessly, even as daylight slipped into darkness.

Through a chilly day and night, thousands of mourners had 20 hours to file past the bodies of three slain Pittsburgh police officers, and to try, however impossibly, to come to terms with their deaths.

"Every day when you leave for work, you lie to your family and say 'I'm going to be all right.' But you never really know," said Carmen Robinson, a former sergeant for one of the officers, Eric G. Kelly.