Even though I'm a writer by trade, I'll admit that this picture is worth a bucket of words.



The good news is that the people in this car are OK. The CHP reported that the 58-year-old driver and the 8-year-old girl in her car suffered only abrasions and complaints of pain. In a prepared statement, CHP officials said their seatbelts "undoubtedly" saved their lives.

Here's the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA BARBARA AREA CHP

THREE VEHICLE COLLISION RUNS ONE OF THE VEHICLES OFF THE ROAD AND OVER A CLIFF.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2008, at approx. 0730 hrs, CHP, fire and ambulance personnel received a call of a three vehicle collision, southbound US-101, north of Evans ave.
Responding units arrived on scene to find three vehicles involved with one approximately 100 feet over the edge of a cliff on the west side of the roadway.
Patrick Joerger, 23, of Ventura was driving his 2005 Chevy Express van, southbound US-101, north of Evans Ave. in the left hand #1 lane, at approx. 60-65 mph. A Toyota Highlander (Unk. Year), driven by Etelina Figueroa, 58, of Carpinteria, was southbound US-101, in the left hand #1 lane directly in front of Mr. Joerger's van. A 2002 GMC Sierra, towing a woodchipper, driven by Nicolas Pinedo, 47, of Ventura, was southbound US-101, in the right hand #2 lane, directly next to Mr. Joerger and Ms. Figueroa.
Mr. Joerger's van struck the rear of the Highlander, sending the Highlander out of control. The Highlander crossed the #2 lane and the right shoulder before plummeting over a large cliff, coming to rest on its roof near the railroad tracks. This impact caused Mr. Joerger to lose control of his van and it also crossed into the #2 lane and struck Mr. Pinedo's GMC Sierra. Both vehicles came to rest on the right shoulder of southbound US-101.
Ms. Figueroa and her 8 year-old female passenger were transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital with complaints of pain and abrasions, with Ms. Figueroa being admitted for observation. Both were wearing seatbelts which undoubtedly saved their lives. Mr. Pinedo was also transported to Cottage hospital with complaints of pain, treated and released. Mr. Joerger also sustained minor injuries.
Alcohol/drugs were not a factor in this collision. 

Writing today's article about inmate voting reminded me that I wanted to explain the difference between jail and prison.

Before I started working the police beat, I thought jail and prison were synonyms. That's a common misperception.

If jail and prison were being described in one of those SAT analogies, the question might look like this:

JAIL is to PRISON as COUNTY is to
a)    world
b)    country
c)    state
d)    elephant
e)    all of the above

Answer: C - State.

County sheriff's departments operate jails, which house people after they are arrested, while awaiting trial, and for shorter sentences.

Prisons house people who are convicted and sentenced.

The vast majority of people in local jail are unsentenced. This week, there were 1678 people in local jail, and 1164 of them had not been sentenced, according to the Sheriff's department.

The distinction between jail and prison is very important for understanding inmate voting rights because many inmates in California jails have the right to vote, but those serving sentences in state prison do not.

When you get down to the brass tacks of the law, things get complicated. People on parole are not eligible to vote, but people sentenced to felony probation are.

Parole and probation are sometimes confused, but there are significant differences.

Parole is related to state prison time. An inmate goes on parole after serving prison time.

Convicts can be sentenced to serve jail time then go on county probation, or they can simply be given probation.

Probation and parole are similar in that they include a set of conditions a person is subject to, and people on parole and probation are supervised by correctional officers who aim to make sure they don't commit new crimes. Committing a crime, in addition to being illegal, obviously, will also constitute a parole or probation violation. Probation and parole can also include search terms, which allow police to search a person without a warrant.

Because of the difference between jail and prison, it's not technically correct to call someone in jail a "prisoner."

For newspaper purposes, a person in jail is an inmate, and a person in prison is a prisoner. However, a person in prison is also an inmate.

I've covered a number of homicides, and when I arrive at a crime scene, I usually find one of two situations: If the crime just happened, I generally find an area cordoned off with police tape and crawling with officers. If it's the day after a killing, I normally find a quiet street with little evidence of the recent tragedy.

When I arrived on Stanford Avenue on Tuesday morning, more than 12 hours had transpired since someone gunned down Victor Navarro, 33, of Santa Barbara, and seriously wounded another man about 7:20 p.m. Monday.

This was one of those cases where the scene of the crime held few reminders of the terrible thing that transpired there.

One of my colleagues had been there the night before, but he didn't get much information because the whole area was blocked off and called a crime scene.

I pulled up about 9 a.m.

Cars lined Stanford Avenue, a residential street of single-family homes. The street was tidy and the houses looked well cared for. One house had pinwheels near the front door. Several had political signs on their lawns.

There were no police cars, and no crime tape. No obvious stains on the asphalt.

The only obvious reminder of the shooting was a series of orange markings on the ground, the kind police use during their investigations.

The small orange lines lined up with the wheels of many cars near the scene of the crime.

I talked to a few neighbors. Some said they didn't know anything about what happened. One said she heard shots but didn't want to give her name because she was afraid.

A reporter from a Spanish-language news television channel was on scene with a cameraman. We chatted about what we'd heard then went our sort of separate ways, interviewing people briefly as they stopped their cars to see what we wanted. Then I continued wandering, talking to people who happened to be around.

I heard a few rumors but few facts.

Some neighbors said the shooting shocked them. A few said the neighborhood was usually quiet. Some disagreed.

A few bits of information I gathered at the scene helped me frame my questions to police.

Reflecting back on the 90 minutes or so I spent at the scene of the crime, I have to say I found what I expected to find, which wasn't too much.

It feels strange, almost disrespectful, to say the scene of a killing was average, but this one seemed to be, at least from a reporter's perspective at the moment I was there.

Murders change everything for the family and friends of the victim. Some victims' families return frequently to the scene of their loved one's death as part of their grieving.

But if the scene of this crime told a story, it was ethereal.

The scene spoke of the fear violence inspires; of the challenge of learning what really happened, and why; of the vulnerability of human life...  

Much of what I report on as a breaking news and cops reporter involves tragedy, and often that includes trying to contact families who have lost loved ones to violence or horrible accidents.

When we are able to contact families, their reactions vary widely: Some are happy for a chance to talk about their loved ones, some don't want to be bothered, some are understandably wary of some reporter they don't know asking them intimate questions at the worst possible time, and the list goes on.

As much as possible, my colleagues and I do our best to be sensitive to grieving families while also doing our jobs and putting together the most complete, objective, accurate stories we can.

Sometimes after we've built a repport with families, communication continues after the main story has published.

This was the case with the family of Katya Teresa Todesco, 5, who tragically died following an attack by a pit bull mix a family friend was caring for.

After I spoke to Katya's mother and father for our first story about the incident, we exchanged e-mails on several occasions.

After the first story published, for example, we received several calls from television stations asking if we could use the pictures the Todesco family had provided us. We don't give those out without permission, so I contacted the family and they gave their consent to share the photos.

Most recently, I received a note from a family friend who had made a memorial slideshow about Katya's life, and who wanted to know if we would put it on our article. I contacted the family to confirm that the video was what it purported to be and ask if they would like it on the web site, if that would be possible. They said it was and they would.

The article is no longer prominent on our web site, so we decided to include the slideshow in this blog.

Here it is:



For context, here are the two stories we published about Katya's tragic death:

Criminal probe opened in fatal dog attack

Simi Valley girl, 5, dies after backyard dog attack

When you think about cops and breaking news reporting, many of you may think of a reporter who's constantly on the move, on the street, chasing stories at crime scenes and disaster areas.

That's sometimes true.

More often, since my breaking news colleague and I cover eight police department and three fire departments in a county that covers 1,845 square miles, according to the U.S. Census bureau, I spend a lot of the time reporting by phone.

But I have gotten to go some interesting places while on the job.

One of my fun assignments was covering a marijuana eradication effort by the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

I was reminded of that day recently when one of our photographers forwarded me a couple of photos of myself on the job that day.

Take a look:



This first picture, taken by Star Photographer Rob Varela, shows me outside the Sheriff's department helicopter we took to a spot outside Rose Valley. From the landing zone, we hiked up a stream bed to a an illegal marijuana farm, which authorities proceeded to demolish.

Note my extremely professional uniform: UCLA hat, windbreaker from my high school wrestling team, digital video camera, ridiculous hair ...



In this picture, also by Rob Varela, I'm posing behind a makeshift bed the people guarding the pot farm made out of irrigation line. As you can see, this thing must have taken some serious work.

Here's a link to the video I shot that day:

http://gallery.venturacountystar.com/video.cfm?VideoID=524

Another bit of back story has to do with the way stories are picked up by other media outlets.

The day after we published our story about the tragic pit bull attack, we got calls from three television stations asking if they could share the photos Katya Todesco's family gave us, and if we could help them contact the family.

To protect the privacy of our sources, our policy prohibits us from sharing contact information or photos provided to us without a source's express permission.

I passed on the requests to Mrs. Todesco, and while she said she and her husband weren't ready to talk any more, she gave us permission to share the photos.

Here's one that didn't make it into our paper, partly because it's large and partly because I didn't know where or exactly when it was taken. (However, Mrs. Todesco said all of the photos shared with us were recent.)

Many times when we report stories, we learn interesting details that don't end up in an article, either because there's no space for them or because they just don't fit.

This was the case with the story of the tragic pit bull attack in Simi Valley last week that killed 5-year-old Katya Teresa Todesco.

After I first learned the girl's name on Monday, I found a number for the family and called. (Cold calling grieving families is never something I like to do, but it's a part of the job. I simply do my best to be as respectful as I possible can.)

The first number I found for a Todesco family turned out to be the right one.

I spoke to Katya's family and, understandably, they weren't ready to talk to a reporter. They said they might be willing to share photos with us, and I left them my e-mail address and phone number in case they changed their minds.

Later that day, Katya's mother, Katia, called me to express concerns that the short story we had on the web was wrong. I explained that the descriptions of the tragic incident I had came from the police, and she agreed to speak with me to set the record straight.

I was only able to include part of what Katia Todesco told me in the article, so I wanted to tell some of the back story here.

Mrs. Todesco said she called because our first web story reported that police said it happened at her home, and she said that was not accurate. She said her family doesn't even own dogs, and that they were at a friend's house when the tragedy occurred. (We were not able to clear up the discrepancy Monday afternoon, so we had to report both her version and the police's version.)

I mentioned in the article that Todesco praised the doctors at Simi Valley hospital who, with the help of a blood transfusion, were able to revive her daughter. The girl lived for two more days at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

But we didn't have space to include the family's request that anyone who wants to help them donate blood in Katya's memory.

We mentioned that the Todesco family donated Katya's organs, but didn't have space to include the fact that her mother told me an organ donor flag given to her by the hospital was flying proudly outside their home as we spoke.

Yet another powerful detail that didn't make it into the story: Todesco works in a medical center, she told me, and some of her daughter's organs went to that same medical center.