The Paraćin massacre shocked Yugoslavia, where mass shootings were very uncommon. Media reported the attack as a "shot at Yugoslavia". It prompted Yugoslav authorities to send 400 federal police officers to Kosovo at the end of 1987. Despite those killed having been mostly non-Serbs, the Serbian media presented the shootings as an anti-Serbian attack. An estimated 10,000 people attended the funeral of Srđan Simić, the Serb soldier who was killed. Senior JNA officers and the mayor of Belgrade were in attendance. The crowd followed Simić's casket in silence, with some complaining that neither Ivan Stambolić nor Slobodan Milošević had attended the funeral. Afterwards, crowds began denouncing Yugoslavia and chanting "Serbia, Serbia!". They shouted "better the grave than a slave!", "we want freedom", "Kosovo is Serbia", "we shall not give Kosovo away" and "enough of resolutions". Simić's father repeatedly asked for the crowd to stop chanting, but to no avail. After the funeral, an estimated 20,000 people visited Aleksandar Ranković's grave in the same cemetery and sang "Hey, Slavs", the national anthem of Yugoslavia. The crowd shouted "down with Azem Vllasi" and "all Shiptars out of Serbia, Kosovo is ours!".