My officer had just heard a shot, a few seconds later we got a call over the police radio that there was an armed carjacking just about two blogs away from us. So we drove there quickly, left the illegally parked cars and drove down the road until we saw four men standing at the side. They were waving at us, as soon as they saw our rotating light on top of the police car. One of them was repeatedly shouting into his phone while his voice was almost cracking: “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this just happened!”
Where were I? How did I end up in this situation? Wednesday night I went on a ride-along with the police. Anyone can do it. You just fill out some paperwork, choose the district you want to be on the beat and you ride-along with a police officer for up to four hours. Since we had to write a breaking news story for our journalism class I thought that might be a good idea. I was just worried that nothing was going to happen that night because “my” police officer said that because it was so cold and the midst of the week there might nothing going on that night. And then suddenly this happened and we were the first to arrive at the crime place.
Everybody was way too discomposed given the fact that one of them had just been shot at, their car stolen with all their belongings, musical and technical equipment. The three musicians had been on their way to a play at a club and had just waited for one’s cousin to come out of the house. They had seen a car stopping in front of them, a man walking towards them but had not paid any attention. The man passed the car, came back around the car to the driver’s side, pulled out his 40 caliber handgun and shouted: “Mo..fu.. Get the hell out of the car.” The three musicians, scared to death, climbed out of the car, walked away when suddenly the carjacker with dark hair and a scarf of an Arabic type shouted at them: “Do you think I am playing?” and fired a gunshot at one of them. The bullet went straight into his left side where it got stuck .
This had just happened minutes before we arrived at the crime scene. My officer – he was very kind, answered all my questions and tried to give me an insight into what the work of a police officer looks like – had just tried to explain me that it was inevitable for a police patrol to know his area and notice when something is different. When asked how he notices the difference he had answered: “You gain the experience over the years.” When we arrived at the crime scene he said with a wink :”See, here you see that something is different, do you?”
We both went out of the car and he started to ask them what had happened. I was very surprised by his calmness in this case. He explained to me later that you should not let stress take control over you especial in these moments. “Whenever I go somewhere I want people to feel better when I leave and not increase their fear. The most important when you arrive at a crime scene is not to let stress taker over. Stay calm, relax.”
I learned my first lesson as a journalist: Never start asking any participants any questions if the police is still or will be interrogating them. My second lesson: It could be very dangerous for any victims, participants or witnesses if their name was printed in a paper since the murderer could come back for them, so don’t mention anyone unless the police names him officially themselves.
So after one of them had been brought to the hospital, the three victims told the police what they had just experienced, and I had unintentionally locked out “my” police officer out of his car by pressing the wrong button, I got all the information on this case.
It was around four o’clock in the morning and I still had to write my article that was due the next morning. So I decided to call it a day – or a night- go home, write the article, get two hours of sleep and then go to the National Press Club to meet Richard Dunham from the Houston Chronicle and then John Walcott from the McClutchy Company.
Inspiring days – exiting moments. I hope the one man who got shot recovered well.
One quotation that I find very inspiring, forwarded from our professor:
“Always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare… always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”–Joseph Pulitzer
