My First Murder

At about midnight on Thursday we got the call that the homicide detectives had a murder. I had already been working on another story for twelve hours at that point. I grabbed my gear and headed for my truck.

My pulse quickened as I wondered how I would react to what I was about to see. I got to the crime scene rather quickly. It was a robbery gone bad at a cafe in a rough neighborhood called Little Haiti. A customer was shot because he stood up to the robbers.
I walked up on the scene with my camera in hand - filming (Thats me in the far left of the picture above). The yellow crime scene tape was stretched out for half a block around the cafe. Blue and red flashing light from the police cars bounced off of every shiny surface. I slid under the tape and got close enough to see inside the cafe. Blood was pooled on the floor around the body of a man covered by a sheet. I knew it was a man because his hands and feet protruded from the sheet.
He had been shot several times. After seeing the body I became surprisingly calm. I continued filming. I discovered a strange beauty in the scene. I hope it translates to the tape I shot.

We covered the story until around 2PM on Friday. The detectives had some leads but were becoming tired. Needless to say I was on my feet and filming for nearly 26 exhausting hours. Thats when they decided to take me to the medical examiners office to check out the progress on the autopsy... (to be continued)