Tip-Toeing Around the Outskirts of Emotion
I had to cover a candlelight vigil for a young man this week who was shot and killed during an altercation with a police officer after he was stopped on suspicion of a DUI in a bank parking lot.
Whenever I cover this sort of thing I always tip toe around the outskirts of the emotion and really just will myself to be invisible and hope that no one decides to confront me for being there even when we were invited by organizers.
This one was different than most that I have covered. First of all it was in the parking lot of the bank, with a majority of it in one single parking space that the man had pulled into. Secondly it was organized by the local substance abuse group therefore no one would give me the last name of the emotional woman in the photos below. I know her first name but everyone just kept saying “this is AA we don’t do last names” which made me want to reply “but this isn’t an AA meeting” but I didn’t. The young woman in my photos is the mother of the children of the man who was killed. No one would or could tell me if it was wife or girlfriend and there was no way I was going to ask her as she sat there sobbing in the middle of the parking space.
I think the photos stand for themselves even though I had to use a generic cutline of “emotional family and friends…” but feel that had I had the key information that explained this woman’s grief (ie her relationship to the man and her name) it would have given the photos a better context.
But occasionally we just have to go without names and respect the reasons why.
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT MEEGAN M. REID/KITSAP SUN
