Started Out Like This... Ended Up Like That...

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from my assignment desk letting me know about a couple of stories I would have to be taking care of overnight. The first one was boring but the second one was going to be pretty cool.

Henderson Police were going to be doing a 'round up' operation, where they had dozens of arrest warrants and would be going through ghetto Old Henderson and arresting tons of drug dealers.

We won't go into how simple legalization would end this problem... That's a rant for another day.

Anyway I am told that when I show up to the command post I can get great video of he SWAT teams suiting up and getting ready to roll on out. I know there is trouble when I show up (late due to a different story) and there is not a car in the parking lot. Just the command post.

I'd already spoken to the reporter who was meeting me there, Ky, and he said that nothing would begin until 6:30. We meet the PIO and he gives us all kinds of stories about how much access we're going to get, and how we'll be able to go with SWAT and get video of them busting down a door and making an arrest!

Well, it was 6:30 and no one was around. The PIO himself is confused to where they are, and goes off to find the SWAT teams. He comes back to inform us that they started without us, and that he will find some place for us to catch up with them.

Going down hill, this story is...

Suddenly the PIO calls and tells us to head to the parking lot of a high school ASAP! So we (me an Ky, and FOX and NBC) all hop in our cars and speed off to this school. Where we all set up in the parking lot.

Three camera crews and the PIO says 'Try not to stick out'.

WHAT THE FUCK?! It's impossible for three camera crews in a parking lot NOT to stick out.

But whatever. We wait and wait and wait and finally the SWAT team and what equaled a parade of police cars (there must have been 20+) come driving down the road and stop in front of a house. They run in and arrest some people and we get video, just like any SWAT activity, from 5000 feet away. At least it wasn't dark.

We interview some guy in the schools parking lot who's name was Hans and was 'Veery hoppy da police are doing dis!' The police then tell us to come down and we get some video of the aftermath. Sadly, that included four kids in a police car who just had to endure SWAT slamming into their house and taking their mommy and their daddy to jail.

We ask some neighbors some questions, but they were all too afraid to go on camera.

The PIO came over and said that we could accompany SAWT on their third house in the string that they would do, but within a minute he informs us that they are already on number six! SWAT's hauling ass! I just wish they worked this quickly on a standoff. The PIO did tell us, though, that we could hang out at a 7-11 near where they were going next.

We go down there and SWAT had just busted down two doors at once. The PIO drags us down there and we find that in two apartments about fifteen people were arrested. Good times were to be had as they let us walk right up to these guys and get really good close ups of them. I figure that throughout this whole thing the police and SWAT were just using us as a public relations tool as they were quick to show the people who were just ever so happy the police were cleaning up their neighborhood.

But dare we want to go off script, I'd hate to see what would have happened!

Anyway, we come back to the command post and interview the Chief of Police. Ky heads back to the station with the tape, and I head home.

It was interesting how a story started out like something you might see on Dallas SWAT, and ended up just like any other SWAT call out. I find it interesting how we, the media, allow ourselves to be used as a free public relations firm by the police because you know they next time something happens in Henderson, we'll get the same 'denied access' shit and stand-offishness that HPD always gives us.

Oh well.

The men and women in the final picture are all innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The ones whose faces were blurred are juveniles.