Updated: Body of Mayor Ed Lee Lies in State at San Francisco City Hall

 
By Louis Chan
AsAmNews National Correspondent
 

Police escorted the body of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee from a mortuary in Daly City to SF City Hall this morning.
 
An honor guard greeted the casket and a giant U.S. flag dangling from aerial ladders provided by the San Francisco Fire Department graced the front of City Hall.
 
The mayor’s casket passed through two lines of police officers who saluted as others carried the coffin up the steps and into the rotunda.
 
A large number of bouquets and flowers left by members of the public on the City Hall steps has been growing since word of the mayor’s death was reported Tuesday morning following a heart attack.
 
Earlier this morning, city workers moved the flowers off to the left to allow room for the public to pass.
 

 
 
The body will lie in state until 7 p.m. tonight for a viewing which is open to the public.
 
This is only the fifth time in the city’s history that a person has been given such an honor.
 
The line outside City Hall to get in is described as long and the public is being encouraged to pass through quickly to allow as many people to pay their respects as possible.
 
“I was going to the store to buy a bouquet of flowers, but I decided on this small carnation because for him, it didn’t matter how small you were,” Tracy Griffin, a city employee told the SF Chronicle. “I’m here because I lost someone really special to me and someone who was really humble and I considered him a friend.”
 
“I’m here to pay my respects to Ed Lee,” said Matthew Saccomanno, 20, a San Francisco State student said to NBC Bay Area. “He was a great mayor. He was a great man with a great heart.”
 
Still others wept as they passed their coffin-some who knew him personally. Others who knew him only as their mayor.
 

 
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