Christmas Reptilian Rescue

It's Christmas Eve in the newsroom, and I'm working. The same rattling of taps on keyboards and clicks on computers fill the office, devoid of holiday cheer. There is no red, white and green splashed about, no Christmas songs on replay. I kind of like it. Of course as the media, we must be relevant. So our crime reporter Mike Conte and I go about looking for Christmas spot news.

For whatever reason, Mike and I have it in our heads we are going to find a burning Christmas tree. Several fires had already started around town, but the Jersey City Fire Department is incredibly aggressive. Any blaze is almost always out by the time I arrive. No flaming holiday trees to be seen.

As afternoon starts dipping into the evening, and stories and photos are filed in for the night, we hear one more call over the radio for a fire only several blocks from the office. I grab a camera and run.

It can't be more than 5 to 10 minutes after we hear the call when I arrive at the scene. And the fire is already out. The Jersey City firefighters have hosed down the two story house and are already clearing out charred remains. A young girl in a pink robe is sobbing and muttering someone's name. I realize that there is something she lost in the blackened room. I wait out in the cold with the girl, trying to figure out what she is so worried over, a cat perhaps. I am hoping it is not a person.

Suddenly a firefighter comes walking out of the house holding a three-foot, green iguana. "What do I do with it?" he yells out, holding the reptile.

"For God's sake, get it back in the house," the captain yells. "It'll freeze to death out here."

As the firefighter is about to turn back in, I run up and snap a quick picture. The captain later explained that the girl had two iguanas in her apartment. One escaped its cage and knocked over the heating lamp used to keep the animals warm, thus causing the fire. One of the two unfortunately perished in the blaze, although it was not determined which of the iguanas was killed in the flames.

To read the whole story please click on Mike's Story here.

From Saved Iguana

A killer coincidence

"You hear about that crazy homicide over the weekend Conner?" our crime reporter Mike Conte asks me as I come into work. "Police went into an apartment and found a naked body stuffed into a push cart."

I look down at our cover. The headline reads, "Body stuffed in cart" accompanied by a picture of a red push cart.

"Apparently the cops walked in and the guy's toes were pointing to the ceiling," Mike says.

Although fairly gruesome, the incident is not totally outside the realm of normality here in Jersey City. The next day, a teacher was shot in the head (to read that front page story from very the next day click here). Our part-time photographer / local EMT Bill Bayer added to the conversation about how he once arrived on a scene to find someone high on PCP, stomping a cat to death. Jersey City can a be a violent, crazy place.

Over the next few days, Mike begins to dig up the full story. Carmen Matos, 47, her 17-year-old son and the son's 18-year-old homeless friend, Christopher Gonzalez were partying over at Matos's apartment in Jersey City. The victim, Tyrone W. Counts, 43, was also there enjoying a night of drinking and "possible" use of illegal drugs. Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said at some point, Counts said something that was interpreted as being disrespectful toward Matos, which then inititated the homicidal attack (the "homicidal attack" being Matos and the boys repeatedly stabbing and bludgeoning Counts to death with a knife and baseball bat).

The body was then stripped naked, for reasons unknown, and placed head first into a push cart. These efforts seem to have been made with the intention of disposing of the body, but rather Matos and the two boys continued to drink and party into the night. The next morning Matos walked into the North District police to tell them there was a body in her apartment. Matos and her son were charged and arrested on Friday and Gonzalez was brought in and charged Monday.


That brings me to Tuesday, reading Mike's latest story on my lunch break. Looking down at the front cover and the first released photos of the perps, one of them looks familiar. Looking down at Christopher Gonzalez's mug shot, I know I recognize that face. And than I remember where I met him.

"Ken," I yell, running out of the lunch room, waving the front page at my editor. "Did you guys realize we ran a photo of Gonzalez on the front page for a different story?"

"What?" Ken asks.

"When you sent Paul and I out for the homeless shelter story, Gonzalez was our interview. I took a bunch of pictures of the guy."

Ken pauses and looks down, trying to remember the front page story we ran on a Monday in November. His mouth suddenly drops, and he looks back up at me. "Oh yeah man, that's the guy?!"

Nineteen days before the murder, I had met Christopher Gonzalez on the steps of St. Lucy's homeless shelter in Jersey City. Writer Paul Koepp and I were sent out on a relatively slow news day by our editor, Ken Thorbourne to make a story about how the homeless community was handling the cold. Christopher was a young kid we found smoking outside, and was one of the few homeless people comfortable speaking with us.

What struck me about Christopher was his normality. He was well spoken and polite. His demeanor came across as kind. He was even fairly well dressed and clean, besides a pair of dirty white sneakers. My editors complained that he didn't look homeless enough.

He was unremarkable regarding any perception of violence. I sensed no threats while we talked. I felt no fear when I shook his hand. Thinking back now, I would have never guessed he was capable of such an act from our encounter.

When I cover murders and death, there is a faceless perp. It is usually a grainy mug shot or a vague description of someone acting out evil acts. It is often hard to apprehend someone enacting violence. The experience has left me feeling quite capable of murder myself, as I saw little difference in Christopher and I. He was going in for his first day at a new job last time we met, trying to begin supporting himself at eighteen. The only difference I saw in him and I was a matter of luck. He didn't have a home or family to lean on, something I am lucky enough to have. It seems more a matter of where we started life, rather than of character. While obviously there is a very large gap in our integrity, our potential and capabilities seem no different. It's left me feeling the banality of evil.

"That's a crazy coincidence man," Ken says as we look up the front cover from November. "Did he seem like a crazed, murderer when you guys met?"

Paul and I both reply, "No."

List of stories mentioned (in chronological order):

"COLD COMFORT" by Paul Koepp
"Body found stuffed head-first in folding shopping cart" by Mike Conte
"Third charged in "shopping cart" homicide case" by Mike Conte
"THIS PARTY IS DEAD" by Mike Conte

Happy Hanukkah

Living in Borough Park, Brooklyn really is like living in a neighborhood of Jerusalem. Men in black coats and broad brimmed black hats shuffle up and down my street, stroking long beards. The women hide their hair under scarves or wigs. Everyone speaks Yiddish. Every store is kosher. It is odd exposure, living in the Hasidic New York. But I don't think there could be a more truly diverse experience. And luckily I am four stops to China Town.

Tonight in Hoboken I spent the first night of Hanukkah with a governor, a congressman, a mayor and a Rabbi. There is a good joke there, but I will leave it to the imagination. But, as all my neighbors light the first candle, I'll share with a photos and say Happy Hanukkah.

Don't piss on me!

(To preface this story, Steven Lipski is a Jersey City councilman who was recently arrested for urinating off the balcony of a nightclub and onto a crowd during a Dark Star Orchestra concert. Also for the record, Dark Star Orchestra is a Grateful Dead cover band and councilman Lipski is a huge fan. To read the full story click here. Or to read my earlier blog about the incident click here)

Jersey City councilman Steven Lipski is the story that keeps on giving. Everyday I walk into the office, there seems to be another tip in for Lipski, some other strange detail leaking out. The scandal has been spread wide throughout the news, as Jersey City laughs. I suppose I pitied the man at first. It's not like he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people, or is part of a long list of corrupted officials in Jersey. But then he brought kids into it.

Following up on his story, writer Charles Hack and I traveled back to Lipski's C.R.E.A.T.E. Charter School where he works as the executive director. Driving over I asked Charles if he thought it was fair how the media crucified him before he even made a public statement. We ate up every detail and splashed them across the front pages before Lipski came out. Charles agreed with me, but we still thought of several new peeing puns on the way over. And besides this interview now was suppose to be Lipski's chance to tell his side of the story.

Outside the front of the school, Lipski waited for us at the steps. He greeted us warmly and with a firm, political handshake. "So what do you need? What you want to do?" Lipski asks.

"Wherever you'd be comfortable talking, perhaps your office," Charles suggests. "Unless you want to take a picture first?"

"Hang on a sec then-- let me go get the students," Lipski says, and than turns to go into the school.

"The kids?" I ask Charles. Suddenly about two dozen high school students come pouring out the school's front door. They are holding a sign that reads, "C.R.E.A.T.E. supports Lipksi!" and they swarm around my camera. "Is this going to be in the paper?" they ask, trying to squeeze into my view.

I knew that this was the picture Lipski wanted to run, him with his kids behind him. To say the least, I was not comfortable in the situation. I felt like this was exploitative of the high schoolers, so I addressed them.

"If you are in this picture, you are showing support for Mr. Lipksi during the current scandal he is involved in. If you are uncomfortable or do not wish to directly support him, please go ahead and get out of the picture," I try yell over their chatter.

The only response was, "Yeah, but this is going to be in the paper right?"

I moved them into the back of the frame, into a shadow and lowered my aperture so they would hopefully be blurred out of most the photo. Lipksi stood in the foreground and (without instruction) raised his knee on the steps of his school, like a conqueror standing on his land.

The whole ordeal was so ridiculous, I seriously considered not turning in the photos. When we got back to the office, I continued to question whether or not to submit them and eventually decided to turn them in after talking with my editors. In fact, they loved that I took the photo and ran it on the front page.

Click here to view the full photo online.

(These are the Lipski covers: The first is an old archived photo of Lipski, the second I took as the scandal broke, and the third is from this incident at C.R.E.A.T.E).
About a week later, I met Lipski at a housing authority meeting. Before the meeting began, he motioned for me to come over to a corner to talk, leaning in so close I could feel his breath.

"I wanted to thank you and that writer for the story. I thought it was real fair and balanced," Lipski says in a half whisper. "But what was up with that editorial?"

After my photo ran, we put out an editorial labeled, "Sad: Lipski's use of pupils as props." My editors agreed over the photo's absurdity, thus spurring the editorial. And I agreed fully with it's content; Lipski should not have dragged students into a personal affair. Lipski continued breathing out his point to me.

"That whole editorial was absurd! You know, that you pulled those kids out from the gym for the photo--" Lipski says as he touches my forearm.

I look up, and than down into the much shorter politicians eyes. I pull my arm away to point my index finger back at his chest. "No. You were the one that brought those kids out for the photo."

"Yeah, yeah, but you knew what you were doing and set me up," Lipski says.

"No," I say, feeling the blood suddenly rush from heart through my neck. "I did not ask those students to wait after school for the photo. I did not ask those students to come outside into the photo. And definitely did not instruct those kids to make a poster for the photo. You brought them from inside the school and asked them to line up for a photo."

"But you didn't have to run the photo," Lipski says. The tension of my integrity attacked subsides a moment, as I ask myself the same question. Was it right to run the photo? Was it truthful of his character? Was it telling and correct?

The portrait was shot quickly and without much thought for the technical side. But I did consider whether or not to take the photo, as I shot it. This was my reasoning--

The students pictured were legally allowed to be photographed. We had permission from the school's director, who also clearly organized them to be a in the photo. Lipski understood this interview and photo were his chance to tell his side of the story. The writer Charles Hack clearly explained why we wanted to interview and photograph the councilman. Lipski also showed an understanding by having a prepared statement, and also by asking the students to wait after school for the photo. There is no other way the students could have known of us coming without him telling them. The prepared poster is evidence enough.

"So let's just agree to disagree," Lipksi says to me, after sputtering a few more remarks about how he doesn't blame me and actually likes me.

"No," I say, picking up my camera to set up for the current assignment. "You were in the wrong."

List of full stories mentioned:
"Sad: Lipski's use of pupils as props," by the Jersey Journal editorial board.
"Cops arrest Jersey City councilman for urinating on concert goers," by Charles Hack
"Jersey City stands by councilman accused of urinating on concert goers," by Russell Ben-Ali

Hoboken in Arms

Nestled by the Hudson River looking across the beautiful Manhattan skyline, the city of Hoboken is up in arms. Droves of local residents line the street in front of City Hall to protest an increase in property taxes.

Before this new life in Jersey, I had another life in London. Those dreary London town times were filled with demonstrations, working for a pacifist paper called PeaceNews. Most every assignment I had was out on the streets to meet people marching for a cause. I even met a group called Killer Coke that was exposing murders, kidnappings and torture associated with the Coca-Cola company (read that very old story here). It really put me off Coke for awhile.

But those old days of dread-locked London punks are a far cry from Hoboken. This crowd is filled with suits and cataloged pages from J. Crew, rather than tattered army fatigues and Dock Martins. People are lining up in front of TV camera lights, rather than forming human blockades or the infamous Sleeping Dragon.

Of course, the good fight includes any suit or punk-- any class. The ability to demonstrate and cry outright makes us beautifully democratic. It is an amazing privilege to boo the mayor in public. And to be honest, I too would be in arms if my property tax was raised by 47%.

To read the story click here.

Baroque

The quiet moments on an assignment are often what capture me. Filled with the static noise of a city and its people, I am drawn to places that are silent. And lately, with so much work to rush in and out of, it is hard to find those quiet places. This frame led me into an old church and its rafters, and for a brief period, up into bit of peace.

Through the glass

Every once and awhile, I see someone else looking back through the mirror. And they ask me sing. And sometimes a traditional nativity play in Hoboken calls for a kid dressed as a cow.

Another frame from long days in Jersey.

Pearl Harbor by the Hudson

Wiping the sleep out of my eyes at seven in the morning, I arrive to a gray morning by the Hudson River at Exchange Place, Jersey City. I can't even get a coffee this early on a Sunday. Normally I work the night shifts, starting when the sun begins to fade over New Jersey. Waking up as the sun began to rise left me without many thoughts this morning, but the material I collected for the story gave me more ideas than I had originally set out to gather.

The story commemorated the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks. A short ceremony for those that lost their lives in 1941 was held by New Jersey Gov. John Corzine, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy and two actual survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack. While this could have simply been a stand-alone picture for the paper, reporter Charles Hack and I decided to try and make a bit more out the small gathering.

The Journal does not have a style for it's multimedia, so I have been trying to test out a few different variations of the medium. Charles was kind enough to lend his BBC Radio voice to the piece, reading from a short transcript. I prefer to allow a story to tell itself; without narration. But it is quite hard to gather each element for such a story (also considering this event was no more than 20 minutes). Writing, producing and editing this piece was easier than I thought, and it had quite a quick turnaround. But it does suffer from lack of foresight. Quality is truly latched to its mistress: Time.

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

Click here to watch the piece at the Jersey Journal online.
Or to read more click here to read the story.

A changing of the media?

Newspapers are suffering palpitations. But rather than get up off the couch and try to strengthen a new heart, they seem stuck to palpable tension. The business is suffering, as jobs are continually dropped and cut (read more from Maryland, or Virginia, or Kansas). So where is the news headed?

My belief is that the media will always be here. People always need to know. But how people come to know may change drastically. Even how we may ask the questions may change, as what was once the five Ws (who, what, when, where, why and that H, how) may now become Michael Bloomberg's the five Fs (first, fastest, factual, final and factual). In Bloomberg News, reporters use this model to help write stories before they happen. Rather then report, they predict most of the story and wait until they have some release of verification that will allow them to be the first to publish the story. Of course this method is modeled for reporting business news and Bloomberg demands that a very young staff report this way. But where are we headed? Is our emphasis now geared to be the first to lock, load and fire these stories out into the world or have we forgotten content?

The new media should not refocus on quickness, or at least not entirely. Rather the technology should be modified to help create deeper, layered pieces. We should help marry all these mediums into strong stories, not use them as crutches to quicken a message or certainly not to beat out competition. Of course, there may not be any money in the later.

Read the transcript of this NPR broadcast here.

Grace

Living to see the day

My time during this historic election was spent with Grace, but make sure to call her Mrs. Linkhorn. I was corrected several times for calling an old woman by her first name. Sometimes I lapse on the cordiality. Through her historic, 101-year-old life, Mrs. Linkhorn has witnessed both world wars, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam era and now the election of America's first African American president. I had the pleasure of following her through several functions. I watched her make a speech supporting Obama in a dark bar on MLK Blvd. I watched her press in her vote at a crowded Ward F polling station. When photojournalism is done well, it holds witness while others do not. In this case, the momentous feelings of our history's newly written pages felt much smaller and personal. I witnessed someone cast a vote rather than win an election. Her story is small in comparison, but I could feel it connect a long road of history.

This story was particularly challenging, learning how to make a layered piece with new equipment, within a new system. I made more mistakes than I care to count, and am trying to help build a multimedia department from the ground up. The Journal does not have a large voice in this new world of media, and I am still trying to find my own. This piece may be a cast into empty waters, but it feels like a new mistress to try; exciting, and hell of a lot of work to go after.

From riches to evictions

Busy days lead me all over Hudson County: from Jersey City and down to Bayonne and up to Harrison and back to the city. It is not the travel and the traffic that bother me. It is never the reporting and the work. But sometimes content can be jarring. I drive my little Hyundai in and out of the realities people live within, and the difference is stark. Watching one enjoy living, and another struggle leaves my mind with questions. Questions I get to ask myself driving to the next assignment.

With the bright light of this morning, I drove to Bayonne and visited a 12-year-old kid and his family in their clean, white home by the water. The neighborhood looked like a postcard from Connecticut and people smiled at me. This young boy has a world of opportunities in front of him, not just because of the apparent wealth of his family, but because he is an incredibly smart kid. I took his picture to run with a story about how he has won the Bayonne spelling bee two years in a row. He shows me his many trophies that line his bedroom walls. As I say goodbye to the family, the mother fusses about her decorations outside their home, seemingly embarrassed that her various of pots of flowers were dieing in the freezing November nights.

This evening I drove back into Jersey City and visited Carmen Martinez in her apartment building. Her neighborhood is not as nice, not a place where you can leave decorations out. Her apartment building is the kind that sporadically loses its heating during these bitter cold months. The lights flicker in the hallway as we ascend the three flights to her apartment. Carmen's daughter and two granddaughters live with her, three generations of women dependent under the same roof (this also not counting the "seven humble" Mexicans that take up the apartment below her).

"I don't know anything about the laws with home ownership," Carmen tells me. "I've always rented."

She faces a possible eviction because her landlord has lost the property in these plummeting markets and economy. The new owners warned her that in 48 hours they will change the locks, leaving no other information about what will happen to her apartment. She does not know yet if she will be evicted, but she knows she will lose her home soon. The place her youngest granddaughter, Deny-Ra was born.

"We don't know when we're going to get kicked out," says Carmen, parked on the coach, still wearing the clothes she worked all day in. "I just hope it doesn't happen until after the Holidays."

Going from riches to evictions shakes my conscious loose sometimes. It moves your convictions and questions your comforts. It makes me question my stories. It makes me wonder what is a story and what we, as the media, should tell. I understand the necessity of a balance in coverage, but it's hard to defend when you know different realities.

Little Uganda in Secaucus

Sometimes I find myself in church on a Sunday listening to kids from Uganda singing in a choir. Last Sunday I took pictures of the Watoto Children's Choir, a traveling group of children orphaned by the stereotypical ravages of Africa. They each tell their story-- ones that should evoke tears. But their disposition seem sunny. They all testify to the greatness God has afforded them, and smile with big white teeth through the songs. I wonder if they miss their East African homes and what they think of the crowd of white faces. I wonder whether it is legal to book these children for 27 tour dates in November alone.

To see more click here.

Introducing Peyton Kennedy

Showing up to the Attic Ensemble Theater in Jersey City, I walk into a building that doubles as a meeting place for AA. Not entirely sure what to expect, I walk onto a small dark stage. I find my writer, Jeff Theodore interviewing a young girl and her mother in a corner of the Attic.

"So what if this acting thing doesn't work out for you?" Jeff asks the young girl. "Do you have any other back up plan?" Later on that night I call Jeff out on that one.

This girl is sociopath killer, or at least she plays one in a production of Bad Seed by Maxwell Anderson and based upon the novel by William March. In a cast composed entirely of actors over 25, Peyton Kennedy holds a leading role at 10-years-old. She is extremely talented.

Holding up the entire cast from rehearsal, I rush and snap a few frames of Peyton.

"Give me the face you act out in your favorite scene."

Peyton scrunches up her nose and lowers her head. A dark glow surrounds her otherwise innocent face. "This is the face I make when my mother finds out I'm a murderer," she tells me.

Back at the office I look over the quick 25 frames I took. In what was a time crunch, I see a diverse range of emotions and characters in young Peyton. I think to myself, "This one's going into the movies". I also think back and kind of wish I had given her mother my card.

What a pisser

Sitting in my tiny Hyundai Accent, reporting intern Tom and I are on a stakeout. We might as well have coffee and donuts. We are waiting outside of C.R.E.A.T.E. Charter School in Jersey City for it's executive director and founder, Steven Lipski, who happens to also be a Jersey City Councilman.

We are stalking like the paparazzi because Lipski recently was arrested and charged with simple assault at a nightclub in Washington DC. It is just why he was arrested and charged that make the story quite sensational.

Lipski happens to be a dead head. He enjoys the Grateful Dead so much in fact he regularly attends the Grateful Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra. So much that I find a bumper sticker of the band on the back of the councilman's car. Last Friday, Lipski traveled down to DC to go watch his favorite cover band, and he got drunk. Really drunk. While enjoying the electric infused, folksy sounds of the dead, Lipski had to take a piss. While standing on a balcony in the club, Lipski urinated on the crowd below. Bouncers quickly escorted him over to the police. Witnesses identified Lipski as the urinator.

And so that leads us to Tom and I waiting for the pisser outside his work. With time on our hands, we question just how much of a story this is. On the list of things I would rather not have my councilman do, pissing on people isn't really on the top. In fact I feel sorry for him, as he seems well liked by those at the school and the within the community. Of course, we the media eat it all up, and so here I am waiting outside this guys work.

He finally comes out the circus begins. TV crews rush at him with questions and lights. I snap a few photos as he makes it to his car. Later Lipski released a statement saying he is an alcoholic and is seeking out treatment.

To read more, click on these two stories
by Charles Hack
by Michaelangelo Conte

Olé, Olé, Olé

Sometimes it seems like there is so much damn soccer. Each day I seem to find a tip sheet out to some far reaching stretch of Hudson County, for some tournament. Some are good games, some are bad.

I have actually come to appreciate these games, mostly for the beautiful and diverse range of people from Latin America, and I do mean a large, diverse range. Colombians, Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Peruvians. You name it, and it seems like they are represented in the plethora of high school players and fans. And they are passionate.

Sometimes these games are something I can only imagine a Champions league game would be like, bongos, air horns and rowdy fans included. Even in this small corner of New Jersey, these games are treated with such fervor. Emotions are high and the pride taken on the field is incredible. I doubt I will ever again witness a high school goalie, lifted like a savior in the European leagues amongst screaming fans, proudly waving his countries flag.
For more galleries please visit:
North Bergen vs. Memorial
Holy Family vs. Bayonne
St. Peter's vs. Niagara

Blood stained streets

Waiting in the office for something to happen. Phones ring and the shuffling sounds of paper and computers surround my desk. The crackle and blips of the police scanner go on and off.

"I guess there was a shooting," says one of my editors from across the room. My ears perk up. "Down on MLK and Myrtle."

"You want me to go down there and check it out?" I ask.

"You have any other assignments right now?"

"No."

"Sure," she says cooly. "Go ahead and see if you can get a real estate shot in case we run anything. But you probably won't find anyone to talk to you."

It is common knowledge that this part of Jersey City is not the nicest part of town. Shootings are quite regular, and most people tend to avoid going there. Even the police. I show up and park.

It is the oddest thing searching for the evidence of violence. Like looking for the manifestation of evil. Such an impalpable concept, but very real. Hate and anger are intangible emotions, but put into the vessels of humans, they have very real consequences, right there on the sidewalk.

Looking down I find the evidence of a 19-year-old boy who was shot in the leg. His blood is gently spilled across the pavement and fall leaves. There is not a lot of blood, which is good because that probably means he didn't have any major arteries hit, and that my picture will pass the "Cheerio Test." That is the test where an editor must make sure not to offend a reader while they wake up to Cheerios and the paper. Anything to graphic might offend one while stuffing down a heart healthy meal.

I take a few photos of an EMTs plastic glove left behind and the red spots around it. And than I realize that that's it-- no police tape, no flashing lights, no uniforms. Just one plastic glove and blood.

A few guys in a car pull up behind me and I say hello.

"I don't know nuthin'!" one of them yells as they drive on past. I figured it would be best not to point out that I didn't ask a question.

A few neighbors are on cell phones, so I go over and ask. They tell me they heard the shot and the kid screaming for help. They saw an EMT pick, patch him up and take him off to the hospital, but they never saw a police unit come. I take down some notes because I figure that's a pretty damn important detail.

Coming back, I file my photos and ask about the caption. I want to include the details about neighbors never seeing a police unit come on by, but my editors decide against it. We can't really verify if they came or did not, as I showed up about thirty five minutes after the shooting.

It feels like circumstances that are "common knowledge" in this part of town. It feels like putting up a civilians word to the police's. It feels wrong.

Much more to the story of the "Missing Mary"

Driving through the rain and dark gray streets, crime reporter Mike Conte and I are running to break the lid off a story. Break it way off. We are trying to solve the crime of the missing Mary.

Sarcastically poking fun at this lead, Mike and I can't seem to take the story too seriously. An email written into the office asked if The Journal could write a story about a statue of the Virgin Mary that was stolen outside the home of a Colombian family in Union City. Considering the gravity of most crimes we cover, this seemed almost blase. Most days Mike covers murders and shootings and trials of heinous crimes. Before I went on this assignment, I had been searching the streets of Jersey City for the blood stains of a shooting. I don't want to say we were jaded, but we forget about the human element.

Showing up to the house, flowers and candles littered the front of an empty alter. The owner of the statue, Gladys Rodriguez came down from her apartment and began to weep in front of Mike and I, and told us the story of her Mary.

Gladys' son found the statue during a hard time in his life when he was involved deeply in drug use. The three foot Mary become a symbol he used to gather strength and overcome his addictions. Later the Mary become a gift he gave to his mother Gladys, who put it out in front of her house. Neighbors began using it as a place to pray and make offerings. It's meaning had spread, as others used the figure for their own inspiration and hopes.

"It's not important to me-- it's for everybody," a tearful Gladys says.



To read Mike's full story click here.

What's your focus?

My first coverage of a major car crash, and I find myself asking, "what's your focus?" There is the obvious carnage of the mangled wreck. There is the obvious traffic of a long line of cars standing still (which I will find myself in soon). But what detail am I looking for?

The sheriff and a few cops stand around, trying to assess the damage. I notice their work. A few notes here, a few measurements there. I focus on the those left behind to process the carnage, those that have to deal with this massive wreck left on the highway. I do not know if this the human element of photograph, but I do know this is of those left behind.

Armed with Shaving Cream, Silly String and Adolescence

Looking down at my photo request, I read, "A little bit of mischief-- Halloween event for kids at the ice rink, snap 3 to 4 shots of kids in costumes." No problem. Pictures of kids in costumes is like shooting fish in a barrel. You just know that parents picking up the paper will love seeing their kids dressed up as a Disney character.

This is not particularly an assignment that appeals to my own sense of storytelling, but I can appreciate putting that photo in. You cannot devalue that appreciation, even if it is just of a kid dressed as Peter Pan.

But this assignment was all wrong. All wrong. I arrived and there were no costumes. I looked over the ice rink and witnessed a scene of chaos. There wasn't even any ice. 250 kids armed with shaving cream, silly string and adolescence ran without inhibition or restraint. They slapped, shot and creamed anything in their way, utterly destroying their surroundings.

Fuck.

I began trying to get some photos outside the rink, but no angles seemed to work. I knew I had to get in there for a photo. With a bit of foresight I might have brought some plastic to wrap my camera in, or maybe worn some old sweatpants. But I decided to none the less try and braved the pre-pubescent elements and try to get the shot.

Five minutes out amongst these lords of the flies, and they attack. One boy smacks my back with a handful of shaving cream, someone else slaps the side of head. One girl in particular thinks it is funny to demoralize a low paid intern, and takes two hands piled with shaving cream and hits my camera as hard as she can. White, foamy cream smears across my lens, my dials, my poor Canon. All my gear smells like Old Spice from the 1940s.



I'm irate. So I leave. Kids continue to smear shaving cream all over me. Even some parents spray silly string over me as I try to find place to exit.

I ask myself, "Is this why want to be a photojournalist?"

Volleyball Legacies

I come into work and look through my photo requests for the day. And there it is... again. Another photo request for high school girl's volleyball. It seems like every day I get a request for more volleyball. After covering each team for past few weeks, in dark, cavernous gyms, the championships are finally taking place at New Jersey City University. And I am not just excited by the fact that I might be able to push my shutter speed over 1/200 of sec. I'm invested.

After watching these teams compete for the season, I have come to know the characters. Who the underdog is, who the favorites are. They all seem to know me as "that photographer guy". Their mothers cut out my photos and scrapbook them into their daughter's legacies.

I always root for the underdog, but this year they didn't win. I still got a photo published of them, knowing where those photos go.

More photos can be found at these galleries at the lovely Jersey Journal website: McNair v. Holy Family Memorial vs. Bayonne

Breaking News to Break In

Driving through Jersey City is the most challenging part of the job. I race through potholed streets like a toy car in the circus, like a clown, honking and swerving over other clowns. People crowd, fight and run together in in this race of 600,000 people packed into an area of 60 square miles. That figures to be about 10,000 people per square mile in Hudson County. Such a number doesn’t make one a pessimist-- it makes them an angry realist. My third day at the Jersey Journal starts with the normal assignments-- a few shots at a local school, a story about a local bar, a volleyball game. Slowly making my way down to Bayonne from Jersey City, traffic is at a snails pace. I’m grinding my teeth and counting the inches between my bumper and the next, when the distant sounds of sirens begins to catch my attention. I roll down the window to stick my head out and look, and BAM!-- a BMW comes screaming through the safety lane inches from face, two bike cops racing after him. Now I have a dilemma. I don’t consider myself an siren chaser, but I know we are suppose to follow any spot news while we are in the city. I decide to tear off the traffic and follow behind the cops. Only 50 yards further and the BMW swerves into oncoming traffic and barrels back over a divider, ruining the $100k car. Two men jump out of the car and run towards some railway tracks. I’m trying to get over and park when I look up and see one of the men pull out a gun. He looks all over, not really pointing the gun, but not really giving it up. The two bike cops get over to the tracks and jump off. The man flings the gun into a bush and runs. Now I’m just dumbstruck. I realize I have been staring at all this through my windshield and forgot to get a hand on my damn camera. I pull over and run out. The man is already in handcuffs as an endless stream of police cars come swerving in. I snap two frames and he is put into the put into the back of the car. Beads of sweat are running down my back.

My phone rings my editor. “I just got some photos of a high speed chase on 440!” “What? Listen-- some woman drove her car over into Newark Bay and firefighters are in the water trying to get her out. They think she might be DOA.” I run back into my car and tear off South. Of course I have little idea of where I am going, but I have a street name and compass. As I come up to the street, ten minutes later, four ambulances nearly hit me, coming out from the scene. I missed them. Thankfully the woman was rescued by several firefighters that broke through her window and got her out. Those ambulances were carrying the woman and the men who suffered from exposure. (The firemen’s voices who participated in the rescue can be heard here). I wait at the scene as the woman’s car is recovered from the water and than head out to cover girl’s volleyball.