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BONANZAS TO OSHKOSH |
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Reprinted from the Stockton Record: Picnic honors victims By Linda Hughes-Kirchubel On the ground, the San Joaquin
County District Attorney's Office Victim/Witness Program and Victims of Violent
Crimes Support Group hosted their annual picnic at Hunters Square in downtown
Stockton. Its highlight was a missing-man flyover, in which five aircraft fly in
a V formation until one leaves the formation and climbs toward the heavens.
Larry Gaines, who piloted the
Beechcraft that exited the formation, flew in honor of his brother David Gaines,
who died defending his elderly father from a robbery in 1999. In 2001, a San
Joaquin County Superior Court jury convicted Louis Zaragoza of David Gaines'
murder, and Zaragoza was sentenced to death. Jim Posner, Stan Stewart,
Mark Merrill, and Kevin Cooksy flew Windy conditions Thursday forced
Larry Gaines to concentrate on his flying, but emotions eventually caught up
with him as he left the formation and headed west over the Stockton Deep Water
Channel.
"I was thinking that my
brother David was right there in the airplane with me and hoping that his soul
could see what was happening," he said. "He would have thought that it
was the most cool thing."
The salute is usually performed as
a tribute to fallen soldiers, sailors or other military personnel. But victims
of violent crimes -- and the ones they leave behind -- are different kinds of
heroes, said Diane Madrid-Batres, who heads the county's Victim/Witness Program.
"We want to honor everyone who
works for victims, all the families, and the victims who are our heroes,"
she said.
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