The Ventura City Fire Department frequently sends us photos from the incidents they handle, and while we don't generally publish those in the paper, they can be very interesting.

I received three photos today about an incident involving a child who had to be extricated from a vehicle after his father crashed into a parked semi truck. (Police believe he was driving drunk: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/dec/31/dui-suspected-in-crash/)

I am including all three below.

Take a look:

 

Just because something is a big deal to someone doesn't mean it's always a big news story.

This may seem odd, even unfair, but it makes sense once you've reported for a while.

Everyone has stories that are immensely important to them, and often those stories are interesting, but there simply isn't space or time to cover all of them.

As I write this, the CHP is listing one traffic accident, for example. I'm sure that accident was a big deal to the people involved.

Generally, we only cover traffic accidents when someone is seriously injured or killed, or if it causes a really serious traffic jam.

I get calls frequently from people who ask me why the horrible accident they saw wasn't in the paper, and that's usually why: (thankfully) the crash didn't make the cut. I don't blame them. I would probably call myself, if I was in their place.

It's good to hear from readers because I'm often sitting in the office, and tips help me stay on top of the news.

But I digress.

Before I got distracted, I started writing this blog entry as an excuse to share this picture with you:

 

This photo, courtesy of the Ventura City Fire Department, shows firefighters putting out a fire that destroyed a motor home in Ventura on Wednesday.

As you can see, the fire was pretty dramatic. It totally destroyed the motor home, which was worth an estimated $30,000.

And it was a primary home for its owners, fire officials said in a statement.

That seems like a big deal to me, but it was only a brief in the paper. There was simply too much going on in the past week to look into it more.

In fact, with the tragic Metrolink crash, even a quintuple fatal crash near Fillmore got very limited attention.

There was an officer-involved shooting in Ventura yesterday, so I thought this would be an opportune time to take a moment to discuss this kind of incident.

Like many of the things I write about as a police reporter, officer-involved shootings are very different than they are often portrayed in much of television and cinema.

In the almost two years I have covered cops and breaking news in Ventura County, I have reported on several of these incidents.

I think the phrase "officer-involved shooting" says some important things on its own.

Law enforcement, like many specialties, frequently uses its own vocabulary, but this phrase is hard to get around. It is used to describe any incident where an officer fires a weapon, and as such it is accurate but a little non-specific.

Think about possible alternatives:

If an incident was called an officer shooting, it would imply that an officer had been shot. If it was called a shooting by an officer, it might imply that the officer was at fault.

The phrase, officer-involved shooting, on the other hand, makes it clear that an officer was involved in a shooting incident, but stays distant from anything that could be perceived as a factual statement or judgment about who was at fault or why the officer decided he or she had to shoot.

This all points to the seriousness with which these incidents are handled.

Unlike movies or television shows where officers often run around with guns blazing, in the real world it's a big deal whenever an officer uses potentially deadly force.

When such a shooting happens, the department whose officer was involved typically keeps information very close to their vest.

For example, in the two fatal officer-involved shootings I covered, departments waited days before releasing the name of the officer.

The names were released more quickly in the two officer-involved shootings involving the Ventura Police Department this year. The suspect who was shot survived in both of those shootings.

This time, the department also released a picture of the knife the suspect allegedly had in his possession when he confronted the officer. I didn't expect to get something like this, frankly.

Here it is:


It should be no surprise that police departments carefully calculate their responses to these incidents.

In both fatal officer-involved shootings I covered, relatives of those killed filled wrongful death lawsuits.

In addition, the District Attorney's Office investigates each use of deadly force.

To deem a shooting justified, the DA's office has to determine that "a reasonable person in the same circumstances" would believe him or herself (or someone else) was in danger of death or great bodily injury, Chief Assistant Ventura County District Attorney Jim Ellison told me.

If the DA's office decides a shooting was unjustified, prosecutors can pursue a criminal charge.

When someone is killed, the DA's office usually produces a public report on the incident.

These reports can take a very long time. Several reports came out this year about fatal officer-involved shootings that occurred in 2006.

When the person shot is facing a criminal prosecution, the office doesn't produce a report, Ellison said.

The rationale is that the information will come out in trial, and the DA's office doesn't want to interfere in a prosecution, Ellison said.

That means that unless something drastic changes, there won't be a public report from the DA's office on yesterday's officer-involved shooting.

Here are some of our recent stories involving officer-involved shootings:

Ventura officer shoots teen after police car rammed

Two officers cleared in fatal shooting

Deputy ruled justified in shooting of man

Mother files claim in son's shooting death

Officer who killed suspect is identified

Details emerge in shooting of former Seabee

Oxnard police on hunt for suspect linked to businessman's killing

And while I was looking up officer-involved shootings, I found this interesting study on the National Institute of Justice Web site about police responses to shootings:

National Institute of Justice