AgencyNewJersey

I always think we’re done with news, and then the phone rings. Got a call from The New York Times asking me if we were covering the less than an hour old police shooting in Lakewood. It felt bad to say but, we don’t shoot news anymore. It doesn’t pay, period. Doesn’t pay to keep the laptops, wireless cards, news pagers, even decent “news” cameras. “It’s over Johnny.” So I made my way down to where a Lakewood police officer was gunned down while in his patrol car. The police didn’t have a suspect in custody and the area was locked down, and it was almost dark. Somehow I got off the Parkway, snaked my way through a development, and ended right across from one of the related active crime scenes. I snapped a few frames, talked to a few people, made my way back home, after a quick detour at Jersey Shore Medical Center. Fifty minutes door to door. A few years back and I would have enjoyed working this story.