He was slumped in a chair in the corner, face pointing straight up at the ceiling, fingers curled stiff, long hair matted and slick with blood at the sides of his head. The gun lay on the floor pointing toward the door of the backyard shack where he was found. He was breathing but he would be dead in about 15 minutes.

“Weak, that’s weak,” said Sgt. Alex Salinas about 20 minutes before we arrived at the Compton home for the last call of the night, when we learned over the radio that the “shots fired” call we were racing toward was a suicide. “But if he shot himself in the head, it’s good to look at,” he said, rethinking.

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