Tag Archives: police activity

Day 19

Woah, today was a really busy day for a change! Crazy busy in fact, but it was a good change, that morning meeting business is working out. Shawn said that he would rather have too much and not need it all than have too little and have to run file photos. I agree. My day started out with a feature portrait for the NIBJ of the KTEC (Kootenai Technical Education Campus) student of the month, this was about an hour earlier than I usually start, which was fine, and Emma got to come with me because we had to go straight to the location; she’s such a champ for putting up with me!

After the portrait, I was walking from the parking lot to the front doors of the Press and I heard a jackhammer next door at the construction site so I went over for a second and got a photo of him. When I got in, I was given another assignment to go follow up on a story that was written for the business section and take a few photos of the location putting up their sign, this is for a super uppity car wash going in off of US-95, that was pretty cool to see, it gave me a mild heart attack though when I got there because I thought I had missed it. I saw their electronic display was already up and I thought that was the sign Shawn was talking about; thank goodness I was wrong.

Next I was off to look for a few things, either a city cop pulling someone over, parking on the side of the road to radar, or a busy street. I first had lunch with Emma like I do every day but this time she came with me on a “ride along,” it was really nice having her with me! During lunch though, Shawn called and let me know of another assignment to check up on before 3pm, it was 1pm. There is some possibly changing legislature regarding the concealed carry laws in Idaho and he told me to see if I could schedule something with the sheriff’s office to get a photo… I called, they forwarded me to the lieutenant and he wasn’t there so I left a message (so did Shawn) and he never got back to us. I guess that happens sometimes though. So back to the traffic or the cop, I figured that the chances of me finding a cop pulling someone over were going to be pretty lean, so I got the busy street first and then figured we could look around for police.

Time got away from me and it ended up being time for a “sportrait” that I had scheduled for a feature regarding brothers on the same basketball team. That was tricky without lighting, we are awaiting the go-ahead to get some lighting for the press and it, i guess, has been a long time coming, regardless, it will be nice when it gets here.

I resolved that we’d just head back to the Press but in driving back I still wanted to keep my eyes out for police, amongst silent prayers that I would be able to find something, I spotted some police lights… a lot of police lights. Emma and I drove over to see what was going on and there were probably eight squad cars, police and sheriff, police boats (it was over at the marina), a fire truck and a crowd of people. I pulled up right behind Shawn’s car and I was glad that the situation was already being covered however I couldn’t resist taking a few photos of my own. Apparently some guy decided he didn’t want to live anymore and so he was trying to freeze himself to death in the lake, he had been there for over an hour; he had to have had some mental disorder or maybe he was on some crazy drug because he was raging and twitching, just freaking out. It was crazy to witness, but not long after I got there the police got him out. I hope he recovers.

Also, kind of big news, AP wanted a couple of the photos that I took for the LGBT weddings story that we did back on the 30th. Cool! They will be using them in a weekend story that they will be doing on the chapel. this hasn’t ever happened before so I’m not sure what to expect but I still think that it is pretty cool.

Day 16

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Today started in a way that I wasn’t expecting. We heard on the scanner about some sort of accident down on the reservation, police were going down a ravine by a bridge and we thought that would make a pretty good story so myself and a reporter went down to check it out. When we finally got out there we saw the police parked by the bridge and so we started walking down the middle portion of the bridge that separates north bound and south bound traffic. When we got a little way down I saw a few firemen and policemen down by the river, and then one of the tribal police officers told us to get back to the road. It appeared to be a suicide and we don’t report on those.

After getting back to the Press, Shawn went off to cover a couple stories and I drove around looking for stand alone photos. During my driving around I got a call asking me to look out for guys with food trucks and to get a photo if I could. It turned out that just before I got the call I passed a guy waving a sign for his food truck and so I went back up the street and got the photo I needed. I still hadn’t gotten a stand alone photo that I liked though, so I drove around a little more and I saw an older lady walking with a broken umbrella and I thought that would be perfect, I parked shot the photo and got her name so we could use it it was just the image I was hoping to get too! I took another image like it as well, just of a different person and when I got back to the press, she had emailed and revoked her permission for me to use her photo, that had never happened before… but she sounded like she was in a bad mood when I talked to her so maybe she was just having a bad day.

After I got the call from Shawn about the lady and her photo, I was asked by a reporter if I could take a photo for another In Person story, and that he would be there any minute. I was a little on the spot but I made due and it didn’t look too shabby. Over all, today was a good day.

Day 11

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We got in new gear today! When I got to the press I got my workstation set up like normal, it was a slow start today. Shawn comes in and after he sets up his computer he says to me, “ok dude, are you ready?” Then he left… I was a little confused, but in a few seconds he came back with a massive box full of camera gear! I’m just the intern, so I don’t get to use it which is alright, but it was like working at the camera store again! Today we got in two more Canon 1Dx bodies, two small bags, two wireless intervelometers, a few UV filters, extra batteries, extra memory cards, and tomorrow we should be getting in two printers and paper to go with them. That was a fun start to my day.

I’m also beginning to see that sometimes it takes a little time for the reporters to get us the photo requests for their stories ahead of time, sometimes until things get going in the day stand-alone photos are the only option. Looking for stand alone photos today I found a couple of workers from the Coeur d’Alene Resort while they were taking down Christmas lights on Sherman Ave. (main street).

Later on, I was back to an elementary school to cover some after school activities that were going on in Hayden. I’m beginning to realize that the elementary school kids are some of my favorite people to photograph, they are just so good at having fun. On my way back from the school, Shawn called me up and let me know that they just heard about a four-car accident at an intersection in Hayden where I was still at and he wanted me to head over to get some photos of the accident. This was a first for me, thankfully only one person out of the four cars involved was transported to the hospital.

Day 8

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Today was so slow, there weren’t any photo requests until later in the day, so my mentor and I split up and went looking for stand alone photos. There was one request that came in for people showing their Seahawks pride, so on our search for stand alones we also looked for that. After a few hours there was nothing to be found… on the bright side though, my wife Emma came with me to Coeur d’Alene today to do some work remotely for her job and we were able to eat lunch together and that was awesome!

later on, we were notified on the police scanner about a pipe bomb found in a motel, and since I was the only one in the office they sent me to go check it out. It was pretty much a non-event… about the size of a sparkler bomb, but we ran the story because it was something. I got a photo of some missionaries taking advantage of the situation, it made me smile to see that.