Before I was hired by The Star, I never thought I wanted to do cops reporting. The cops beat is frequently the tragedy beat, and I didn't know how I would deal with the deep grief that surrounds many of the stories I would have to cover.

Often, I find myself building personal firewalls to keep stories in the work part of my brain. But at the same time, I think it's important to remember that tragedies have long tentacles and indelible dye.

As I was preparing today to cover a memorial walk for Jack Mabee, a young man who was killed when a car he was riding in was hit by a train last week, I thought of one such tentacle that touched me.

I thought of Ramsey Ellis.

I didn't know Ramsey that well, but his untimely death in a car crash left me with a feeling I've never forgotten.

I was a freshman at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills when I met Ramsey. He was a junior and close with a group of my older friends.

I remember him as a brilliant kid with wild curly hair.

When he was young he did some acting - he had a role in Batman Forever, if I'm checking correctly - and in high school, he was active in debate.

He was a fan of Friedrich Nietzsche and he sat on top of a cabinet in the corner of my history class. I think that was because there weren't enough chairs on the first day of class, but it quickly became the post from which he observed we merely mortal students and joked with our teacher, who was everybody's favorite.

I don't remember how many times I actually talked to Ramsey. It wasn't many.

That year he was involved in a car crash. I never learned the details. Frankly, I didn't read the newspapers much at that stage of my life.

I just remember being shocked when another student told me he had been declared brain dead. I remember our teacher crying, wondering if there was anything he could have done that would have put Ramsey at a different place at the all-important moment.

I remember skipping class to sit with grieving friends and finishing track practice early to go to a memorial.

I remember two of my older friends played guitar and sang at a little memorial on the quad, and that a tree was planted there with a plaque. We sat by it for years.

In addition to the grief that comes with knowing, even slightly, someone who dies tragically, Ramsey's death taught me that I, too, could know good, young people who could be snatched from this life by stupid accidents.

That terrified me, but it also taught me to value all those people around me persistently.
 
Maybe this is one of the reasons I think talking about the human side of tragedies is such an important part of my job.

It's important to remember.