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Some of the stuff we do as reporters

Being a crime reporter can be tough some times. The demands of the job aren't too tough; it’s the unexpected that always hits you the hardest.

I still remember seeing my first dead body. A man was trying to cross Old Iowa Park Road and didn't make it. The photographer and I arrived a little after the accident happened, and the site is something I will never forget. He was just lying there. The ambulance took him away hurriedly as if he was going to survive, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

I never imagined when I took this job that something like what I just describe would be something I would come across. I'm not saying this as a bad thing; I'm just saying it’s a thing.

Some of the stuff reporters and photographers have seen can sometimes only be met with disbelief.

I still remember my “welcome to� days at the paper. A photographer was telling me about an accident he saw where a car full of teenagers rammed their car underneath a trash truck. If I remember his story correctly, no one lived, but the image that haunted him was the sound of the people in the car made as people tried to get them loose.

The same photographer told about his trip to a house fire and when he arrived he saw a person running out of the in flames, with skin melting off their body. This I hope I will never have to see.

The reason for this blog is a disturbing story I spotted in the courthouse a week or two ago. I can still remember almost every detail. And as a new father, I doubt I will ever forget it.

A man was sentenced to 10 years in jail for basically crippling a infant for the rest of their life. The baby didn't die, but the things he did should never be forgiven. He broke the baby's arms and legs and caused internal bleeding to the baby's brain.

I didn't know what to think when I started to read the police paperwork. My stomach hurt, I was light headed and I then realized I would have to go back to the paper and relive the details in the simplest of ways possible to tell the public.

It was tough. The monsters we live with today.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking in the back of the mind like this might appear to be a call for sympathy. It's not; I just figured I had a story or two to tell.

Posted by Clayton Hein at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)