Editing a Dead Man.

Looking back at me from the computer screen, were the eyes of a dead man. It haunts me. His eyes. His smile. He looked so happy in every picture we found. He’s now lying in the county morgue. 

I spend a lot of time looking at photos of dead people. I guess it’s a part of the job that you try not to really think about, but at times you can’t help but to. In the hectic moments before deadline, it’s usually a frantic fury of excitement trying to get our story done. In this case, it meant creating a graphic of the photos we downloaded of Filimon Lamas and his family. It’s funny sometimes how excited you get when you find a photo, or a piece of video that works for your story, without really thinking about what you’re doing. A quick search of Facebook, I found exactly what I was looking for, Lamas’ profile picture. That fits perfectly where my reporter talked about how he’s dead. 

That made me happy, so to speak. 

There’s something in your brain you have to turn off when you work in news. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to turn it back on. It’s not simply being desensitized. It’s not simply being callous, or uncaring. It’s about being able to completely disconnect from reality. That the photo on my screen is just part of the editing process. It’s not Fillmon Lamas, a man who married his high school sweetheart, was a devoted father and husband, and died trying to shield his children from a crazed gunman. It’s a graphic that fits between 1:08 and 1:17 on the timeline.   

All of us have walls. Some thicker than others, but there’s no way you can do this job without one. The senseless crimes try their best to find the cracks.

The Duke.

The passing of Duke Snider over the weekend, reminded me of my favorite baseball story. A story that took place, not between the lines, but far from the roar of the crowd. 

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Don Newcombe while shooting a sports show. Engrossed in his recollections of the golden age of baseball, I locked down my camera and grabbed the closest chair, occupying only the furthermost edge. 

He tells a story few have ever heard. 

Every year, baseball takes a day to honor Jackie Robinson. Players across the country take the field, 42 adorn the backs of their jerseys. Speeches, ceremonies and tributes echo through the cathedrals of the game. But lost in history, are the struggles Robinson faced every day off the field. 

What’s forgotten, is Robinson, as a African-American, was not allowed to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the team, simply because of the color of his skin. 

Branch Rickey, who was responsible for signing Robinson and bringing him to the big leagues and championed the desegregation of the Major Leagues, was finally driven to ask, nay, demand that Robinson be allowed to stay at the hotel during one of the Dodgers’ road trips. The hotel manager said that as long as Jackie did not use the pool, he could stay in the hotel with the rest of the team. 

As the bus pulled up, Jackie Robinson, his close friends Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider, were the first off the bus. As they approached the front door, Reese and Snider, a plan they had hatched amongst themselves without Robinsons knowledge, each took a stutter step, allowing Jackie Robinson, a black man, in an era where such things just simply did not happen, to walk through the front door of the hotel, ahead of his team.

Simply the best baseball story I’ve ever heard.

Who Got Shot?

I spent the afternoon in the ‘hood. The projects to be exact. Seemingly endless rows of iron-bar covered doors, most rusting to a pale brown. Laundry flapping on clotheslines strung from house to house. Curious, yet cautious stares from behind drawn shades. Jordan Downs Housing Projects. This is the kind of place they write rap songs about. Where a sudden noise can send people scrambling for cover. I spend a lot of time in places like this, usually peering my camera over crime scene tape to get a better shot of a tarp-covered body laying in the road, or listening to another hysterical mother devastated at the loss of a son. I think I may have even become immune to the sound of gunfire.

 

103^rd and Compton, the heart of Watts. Body counts here rival those of wars. Few people ever escape the clutches of the gangs that rule the streets of South Central. Bullet wounds are worn as a badge of honor. For some, the badge is a tombstone, the dates chiseled often not spanning two whole decades.

Society tends to write off the people that live here. Many write themselves off, damned to a life trapped in a cycle of violence and poverty, each day a struggle of survival.  

A precious few get out.

Ronald Brown was just another “ghetto kid from the projects” growing up in the late 50s and early 60s. One of six kids, his parents divorced when he was five. Clothes cost money, and his family didn’t have any. Food was harder to come by. Ronald Brown got his first job at eight years old.

And somehow, as the inner city around him continued to take lives, either by the bullet, or by the bandanna, somehow, Ronald Brown’s life flourished. The library became his sanctuary. Yet once through the doors to the streets outside, no place was immune. Robbed. Beaten. Dead bodies, sometimes those of friends, passed on the way to school. This was Watts after all.

But Ronald Brown never gave in to the mean streets surrounding him. His mother wouldn’t stand for it. The fear of disappointing mom was far greater than the fear any gang member could ever hold over him.

Honors in high school. Then to USC, a mere Metro bus ride from home. The echoes of the broken streets of Watts, still close enough to hear. He worked the whole time. A scholarship brought him to graduate school at UCLA. And the “ghetto kid from the projects”, walked across the stage at graduation, Law Degree in hand.

And then, Ronald Brown did something that most people would never do.

He came back.

He came back to the inner city. He came back, to give back. To the people that helped him avoid the temptations of gang life. To the county that gave his family food stamps to buy bags of rice and beans when the till ran low. To serve the community that served him. Instead the lucrative life of private practice, Ronald Brown joined the public defender’s office.  

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

His hand on placed on a bible. A nervous smile masking a slight quiver in his body. Today, Ronald J. Brown, after 29 years defending those who could not turn elsewhere, became the first African-American to be appointed the head of the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s office.

Grown men fought back tears. I had goosebumps. The cheer from the crowd was far greater than the number assembled.

Then we headed to the 'hood.

I sat in our van, waiting to go live, staring at the peach colored stucco of Jordan Downs. Never would we be here after dark. Even in broad daylight, the assignment desk knew exactly where we were, just in case.

"Who got shot?" we were asked by nearly everyone who walked by.

For once, there wasn’t a body under a tarp. The power of a statuesque man, humble as he is proud, gives me some hope that what we do, when we tell a story like did today, does matter. Today, I was happy to be in Watts.

But I still wouldn't be there after dark.

 

Witnessing History.

My latest blog entry.

As the sand runs out on yet another calendar, we all look back at the year that was. Our favorite moments, the best and worst of the world around us. What made us laugh and cry, and look forward to what the days ahead may yield.

The best part of my job, is I get to witness history. Sometimes, it's history that generations long after we're gone, will read about in textbooks. But often, it's moments that quietly slip past most that mean so much to me.

June 4th, marked the passing of John Wooden. Growing up in Southern California, you knew John Wooden. The Wizard of Westwood, the Pyramid of Success. A legend that legends aspire to be.

Wooden had been sick for a few days, and the media was keeping vigil outside the hospital on the UCLA campus. I was there just to be a second set of hands, to help out with Suraya Fadel's live shot. But we had gotten word that some UCLA students had planned a "8-clap" rally in front of the hospital so I was sent over to get some "b-roll" for later shows.

I was making my way around to the front, when the phone rang. "John Wooden just died."

I stopped. Its rare for anything to make me stop in my tracks, but this did. John Wooden was gone. I knew the whole story had changed. I knew everything had changed.

I got over to where the rally was to take place, and a few students were already there, waiting for others to arrive. I didn't know if they knew, but in moments they did. I grabbed a few quick interviews, getting the thoughts of those who organized the rally, and some who were just showing up.  

And they kept showing up. By the dozens. Then the hundreds. Then the thousands, as if the heart of UCLA opened up and poured out into the streets.

Then it started.

U..... C.... LLLLLLLLLLLLL...... A. U-C-L-A FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

And again.

And again, louder and louder, as if to reach the heavens for Mr. Wooden himself to hear.

These were kids who were some 80 years Mr. Wooden's junior, born decades after he had coached his last game. And they kept coming. The street overflowing with students. I was caught in the midst of the crowd, and could not see the end of either side.

Mustafa Abdul Hamid, a Bruin basketball player, grabbed the bullhorn. His words were as eloquent as a king, pouring from deep within his soul. Mr. Wooden's presence flowed through the crowd, for indeed, he was UCLA.

And it began again.

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHwFL7h4Qmg

Somewhere, amongst that sea of blue, is me. Somewhere.

I knew I had only moments, but I called a friend, a UCLA alumn, and held the phone up above the crowd: "Diana, today, you should be proud to be a Bruin."

I was still alone, Suraya wasn't able to get over right away, so I started interviewing anyone who would talk. And they all talked. And they all praised a man whom most had never met, but his presence had influenced their lives. Tears flowed as if a loved one had just passed, and a moment of silence that culminated in the loudest 8-clap the campus has probably ever seen.

The crowd began to thin, it was finals week and most had to get back to the books. Many stayed. Candles were lit. Tears were wept quietly. Friends held friends. Hands clenched hands.  

John Wooden was gone.  

I knew I was witnessing history. Not simply the passing of an iconic sports figure. Not simply the passing of a great man. I saw the gap of generations fade away. I saw the power of a single human being touch the lives of thousands.

I was in awe.

2010 was unsual. There were few "big" stories, the kind that distant relatives call and wonder if you're a part of. But it was a small part of a huge story, that will forever grace the mental calendar of the year that was.

I was very proud to have witnessed history.

A life, ended.

I’ve watched a lot of people die. More people than I care to count honestly. In my former life in Emergency Medicine, you almost got used to it. Most of the time, it was a mere formality, watching the line on the monitor go flat, and with it, a soul slipping away. It was routine. Print out a strip, hand the run sheet to the charge nurse, hit Starbucks on the way back to the station.  Just one of a dozen calls that day.
 
Then there were the times where you arrived to a living, breathing, talking human being, and delivered a corpse to the hospital. Those stuck with you. Those were real.

But yesterday, I watched a life end. There was no trauma, no heart attack, the line didn’t go flat.

I sat in a courtroom in Orange County, and watched Andrew Gallo’s life end.

51 years to life. 51 years to life for the deaths of three people in a hit and run DUI crash.

A 24 year-old who will spend the next half century in jail.

A lot of my life is viewed in black and white, through the viewfinder of the camera, disconnected from reality. Tunnel-visioned in on the task at hand. Cut-aways, B-roll, audio, no time for emotional investment. I bear witness often, but rarely testify.

Yesterday was different. I was only there to run a live shot, which wasn’t going to happen for hours. I took the last empty seat in the back row, next to a friend, furiously scribbling notes for her story. I was directly behind Gallo, a clear view up the aisle. I became oddly fixated with the sign “defendant” on the table in front of him.  His foot twitched, nervously tapping up and down. I f as the families of his victims fought through the tears, pleading with the judge to sentence Gallo to the maximum sentence allowed. I caught slight glimpses of his face as he turned away. He motioned often to the Bailiff for tissue. His foot continued to twitch. I kept reading my friend’s notes.

The trial had played out in the media. I had seen Gallo many times before, but never in person. The prosecutor, the judge, the families of the victims, all characters in a tragic reality show played out a minute and a half at a time.

People I didn’t know sobbed about victims whose names were familiar, but I had never met. It echoed through the courtroom. The young man in front of me buried his face in his hands, openly weeping. I pondered his connection to the victims. Stories that had no meaning to me, of childhoods, laughter and dreams painted a picture of three people, anonymous before today. I hung on every word.  I still didn’t know who they were.
Gallo’s foot twitched. I kept watching his foot. Did anyone else see his foot?

His life was about to end. It was only a matter of time.

I started to think about what was going through his mind. He sat there, “defendant”. A life in prison only moments away.  What is he thinking? Life in prison. I studied his blue dress shirt. The last dress shirt he would ever wear. What can he be thinking? I kept glancing out the window, maybe in my own desperation to cherish the world outside, knowing that all it would take is one bad decision, and it could be me, “defendant.”  What would I be thinking if I knew my life was about to become a 6 foot square box for the next half century?

The Judge allowed him to address the court, to apologize to the families.  I listened in soundbites. My personal biases keeping me from absorbing a single word. It was the first, and last time I would ever hear his voice.

Then, the executioner’s blade fell, “51 years to life in prison.”

The sobbing from the gallery overwhelmed the silence. He stood, the bailiff shackling his wrists, and he was led from the courtroom, disappearing through the door, heading for a life in prison.

I watched as a life came to an end. 

And so it begins.

I've been contemplating this for years now. I don't know how many people will be interested, maybe this is more for myself than anything else. Years back, when the camera I held went "click" and the pungent odor of developer permeated my every fiber, I wrote a column. (That's what "blogs" were called back then kids, and you ink on your hands when you read them.) I called my column "The Camera, I"

I wanted to give people an insight into the world of being a photojournalist. The saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words" but for me, I wanted to tell the story of the thousand words behind every photo. One of he great things about my job, is I get to see things, go places, meet people, that most people will never be able to do. It's also the worst thing about my job at times.

So I embark on this once again. Hopefully some insight into the world I see every day. I'll try to keep it current, every day I head out into the world with a camera on my shoulder there are a million stories waiting to be told. Maybe I can tell one or two

And I promise you won't get ink on your hands.