Many people wonder how the reporting process works.

For today's blog, my fellow cops and breaking news reporter, and guest blogger, John Scheibe, describes one story he recently sussed out:

It often seems that half of what I do as a reporter is try and put stories
in perspective. Is it an important story and, if so, how how much of an
impact will it have on our readers?
 
I also spend a lot of time chasing down sources, the people who know what
really happened. Much of it involves leaving voice mails, hoping that those
in the know will call me back in time for me to write and file my story.
 
Monday was no exception. When I arrived in the morning, one of my editors
sent me an e-mail from a father. His son had helped bring a stranded swimmer
to shore in Ventura on Saturday.
 
It seems a 14-year-old girl was having a hard time swimming back to the
beach. The girl was part of a church group that was down by the sea on
Saturday. The group also included the man's son, Michael Hubbert.
 
I called Hubbert's father, Corey. He was justifiably proud of his son for
helping to bring the 14-year-old safely back to the beach.
 
I then spoke to his son, Michael. Michael said while some people consider
him a hero, he thought his action on Saturday "was no big deal."
 
"I did what I had to do," he said by telephone.
 
He said it was early Saturday afternoon when one of the adults in his group
ran up to him, asking him if he could help bring the 14-year-old back to
shore.
 
Michael said he'd had training in water rescue as part of a course he'd
taken a few years back in the Boy Scouts.  A riptide was pulling the girl
out to sea. Rather than immediately jump in, Michael said he studied the
water, seeing if he could bring himself and the girl safely back to the
beach.
 
Once he decided he could, he swam out to her, trying to calm her down.
 
"She looked pretty frightened," he said.
 
He said he eventually managed to calm the teen enough so that he could take
her by the hand. They swam parallel to the shore, far enough so that they
eventually swam out of the riptide. The two then swam back to shore. Once
there, the girl was surrounded by friends, happy and relieved to see her
safely back.
 
I later tried to contact both the 14-year-old and the adult in the church
group who'd asked Michael to bring the teen back to shore. Finally, after
about an hour, I reached the 14-year-old.
 
She said while it was hard for her to swim against the strong tide, she did
not feel as though her life was in danger. She also said that while she
appreciated Michael's efforts, she probably could have made it back on her
own.
 
I then spoke with the woman who'd asked Michael for his help. She had a
similar account, saying the episode did not appear to a near-drowning
incident.
 
I relayed this information to my editors. We agreed that while this was an
interesting story, it probably could just as easily be told in a blog entry
as in an article.
 
Never having written a blog before, I decided to recount what happened in
this format. This would allow me to both tell the story and the "story
behind the story."

One of the prescription pills frequently abused by teenagers in Ventura County is a muscle relaxant called Soma.

I find that fascinating and somewhat ironic, because "soma" is the name of the substance doled out by the totalitarian state to pacify the masses in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World.

It's not immediately clear why the muscle relaxant was named Soma. I called the maker of Soma, Meda Pharmaceuticals, at their headquarters in New Jersey, and they said I would need to speak to their spokesman in Sweden. The spokesman did not respond to an e-mail.

An article in Time Magazine offers some further etymology. The article points out that "soma" was the Sanskrit name of an ancient intoxicating drink from India and the Greek word for "body."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892617,00.html

This is not an opinion blog, and I am not here to judge Soma or the company that named and produces it. But given that many of the people I spoke to about teen prescription pill abuse expressed concerns about the ubiquitous role of prescription drugs in today's world, examining the role of a drug named "soma" in Brave New World adds an interesting perspective to the discussion.

A literary refresher:

In Brave New World, people are grown in test tubes, not born. In a rigid class system imposed by the all powerful rulers of this world, people are categorized into groups that have specific social functions. For example, the Alphas are on top and have the most intellectual jobs. The social order essentially prohibits individuality. People spend their free time playing complicated games, having socially-acceptable promiscuous sex (both monogamy and pregnancy are taboo), participating in rituals and taking "soma," a drug that takes users on a mental holiday from stress, anxiety, sadness and anything else that would upset the unthinkingly happy people who inhabit Huxley's futuristic world.

There are a few malcontents in this fictional society, but they are largely repressed. Then, one day, a young man  who grew up on an Indian reservation comes to the "civilized" world. His moral values are almost diametrically opposed to those of the "civilized" world, and he's read (and somehow understood) Shakespeare.

Before he kills himself at the end of the book, the Controller (read: Head Honcho) Mustapha Mond explains to The Savage the benevolent ideals behind the massively repressive social structure. Part of the idea, he says, is to create stability by allowing people to indulge. Here's what he says about Soma:

"... What you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed to play free, that there really aren't any temptations to resist. And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and by years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears -- that's what soma is."

It bears mentioning here that Huxley had a deep interest in drugs. His book, "The Doors of Perception" talks about his experience taking mescaline.

Here's what's so interesting about this to me:

Many brand name drugs have names that sound like things that would come out of a professor's mouth in a science fiction novel: Prozac, Xanax, Zyprexa ... But when I first heard of a drug called "soma," in June, it meant something to me. It immediately reminded me of Brave New World.

Name recognition is something all brands strive for, but I have to wonder whether this is what they had in mind.

I hear about firearms fairly frequently in my work as a police and breaking news reporter, but I was surprised this morning when I heard that the weapon that discharged last night, injuring a Port Hueneme police officer was a "zip gun."

I think the last time I had an extended conversation about zip guns when I was a little kid and I was reading "West Side Story" for the first time. One of the members of the Jets gang expresses concern that if they have a rumble, the members of the rival gang might bring knives or zip guns.

I had to ask my father to explain what a zip gun was. As I remember it, described them as simple, homemade firearms that were basically a tube and a firing pin.

That's not all that different from the weapon Sgt. Robert Gager of the Port Hueneme police told me about this morning when I asked about the gun that wounded officer Jesus Chavez.

He said it was a single shot, cylindrical firearm that kind of looked like a flashlight. These weapons, he said, are illegal in this state.

When I looked up zip guns on the Internet, this is what I found that matched Sgt. Gager's description:

http://www.lawdogs.8m.com/catalog.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_gun


Here's a link to the first web version of the story on the shooting incident:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/25/no-headline---nxxfcmorningreport26/

Not so many years ago, police watched crime trends by sticking colored pins into maps.

In the digital age, mapping software gives law enforcement faster and more sophisticated ways to catch and analyze crime trends. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we civilians too can search the digital-age versions of pin maps.

At The Star, we keep a map updated with all the homicides in the county going back to 1996.

http://crime.venturacountystar.com/http://crime.venturacountystar.com/

The Oxnard Police Department has an excellent crime map. It is searchable by location and crime.

http://www.oxnardpd.org/crimedata/

For comparison, here's the Los Angeles Police Department's crime map:

http://www.lapdcrimemaps.org/

As I was writing a brief this morning about alleged gang members arrested on suspicion of armed robbery I learned the legal meaning of the word "kidnap" is much broader than the one we commonly think of.

The robbery victim was dragged to an alley, but that was not what I would have thought of as a kidnapping.

If I say "kidnap," you probably think of a protracted hostage situation, right? I know the first thing that springs into my head when I hear that word is the recent rescue of hostages kidnapped years ago by the Colombian guerrilla organization, the FARC.

But I noticed this morning that the alleged gang members arrested could face charges of kidnap in addition to robbery, conspiracy and participation in a criminal street gang.

When I asked Cmdr. Tom Chronister of the Oxnard police why that was, he pointed out that distance isn't the issue. Kidnapping involves moving a person from one place to another against their will.  Someone could, in theory, kidnap someone else from one part of a house to another part of a house, he said.

Here's the penal code section:

209.    (a) Any person who seizes, confines, inveigles, entices, decoys, abducts, conceals, kidnaps or carries away another person by any means whatsoever with intent to hold or detain, or who holds or detains, that person for ransom, reward or to commit extortion or to exact from another person any money or valuable thing, or any person who aids or abets any such act, is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life without possibility of parole in cases in which any person subjected to any such act suffers death or bodily harm, or is intentionally confined in a manner which exposes that person to a substantial likelihood of death, or shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life with the possibility of parole in cases where no such person suffers death or bodily harm.


Here are the stories I mentioned:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/23/no-headline---nxxfcmorningreport24/

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/03/america/LA-Colombia-US-Hostages.php

It sits on a plastic shelf next to my computer, on its side because it gets better reception that way. It has a volume knob, a squelch knob, and a piece of paper taped on the top that reads: "Do not turn off."

The digital numbers on the screen race silently through frequencies until something happens somewhere, and then the scanner comes to life. An uneven chorus of static-filled snippets pop into the room, because none of the three scanners here seem to get exactly the same signals.

During the day, the chatter coming from the scanner stays largely on the edge of my perception. Today was fairly calm and I heard:

"Sixty-four is on scene."

"It's an unknown upstairs apartment."

"The contractions are now five minutes apart."

"Subjects behind Hampshire Jewelers."

"First floor motion alarm."

"3 Adam 11 advise status."

"Possible domestic heard only."

"Resident ... said her three grandchildren were smoking marijuana in front of the house."

The scanner is an interesting window onto the jobs police, firefighters, paramedics and dispatchers.

From the piercing morning tone tests to calls being dispatched for everything from heart attacks to standoffs, the scanner speaks about the smorgasbord of public safety in fleeting, code-filled sound bites.

In the newspaper office, we're listening for keywords, for the steady-voiced dispatchers to say with their tone that something out of the ordinary is going on.

I'm training my ears for things like "body," "shots fired," "brush fire," "structure fire," "211" (robbery), "victim," and anything else particularly loud or strange.

When the scanner's quiet, I can relax -- a little.

The scanner is a tool, a friend, and sometimes a burden.

It always seems to squawk most when you're busy.

I can only imagine how it feels for those people whose voices I hear in snippets, and those who they call to and fro over the airwaves.

This Saturday morning, I was rock climbing with a small group of friends in Malibu Creek State Park when we heard sirens.

They were close, and we immediately wondered if someone was hurt in the park, located in Los Angeles County not far from the Ventura County line. Maybe it was someone on the road nearby? No, the sirens kept coming.

Then helicopters circled low overhead. It didn't sound good.  I knew no one was hurt in our immediate vicinity (the rock wall is somewhat isolated), but nothing more.

Anxious curiosity burrowed into me. Was it a climber? One of those kids who jumps off rocks into the murky water of the swimming hole? Maybe someone just sprained an ankle really badly, I said. Unfortunately, that was wishful thinking.

As we walked out, we saw kids and families playing in the watering hole near the climbing spot. No signs of tragedy or investigation. But on the trail out there were Los Angeles County Sheriff's cars and fire department vehicles.  

I was off duty, out of our coverage area, and I didn't interview anyone. But that primal urge to know what had happened was still there. I asked a woman who was walking out past the cars. She said she was nearby when a man drowned.  
 
On the way out, a ranger confirmed a man died.

Afterwards, it took me several hours to shake off thoughts about the tragedy.

Authorities later said Ulices Israel Valladares, 20, plunged into the water below a rope swing, surfaced then went under again.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/20/man-apparently-drowns-malibu-creek-park/

I decided to write about this because it brings up some issues I think about frequently as a crime and breaking news reporter.

Tragedies happen every day, all over the world, and deciding how to process them is a delicate question.

I hope that telling tragic tales will start discussions on how similar incidents can be prevented. Or maybe someone will read a sad story and learn something from it. If one person decides not to drink those beers before driving, to not get into a fight with someone who might have a weapon or whatever, maybe we will be hearing one less sad story.

But our desire to know is more fundamental than that. I write a lot of stories about death and those are frequently among the most e-mailed, even if there isn't much information to give.

And how should we respond to those stories? We read them, ponder, maybe feel some brief sympathetic grief, occasionally do something to help the family then, often, push them from our thoughts. Not necessarily in a callous way. It's a self defense mechanism.

I think about these things a lot because I deal with many wonderful people who have lost a loved one, through malice, an accident, and just bad luck. I frequently speak to them for a story one day, but their grief may last a lifetime. It may totally reshape their life.

So this is the challenge: How do we give tragic stories the proper space in our brains, try to learn from them to keep ourselves and our loved ones safer without becoming overwhelmed by things that don't directly involve us?

I don't have an answer, but I think it's a worthwhile question.

I'd be interested in your thoughts.
 

Like many fields, law enforcement has its own vocabulary, and it's one that often confuses outsiders.

Two words people often confuse are burglary and robbery. Many people use these words interchangeably or incorrectly, and, until I became a cops reporter, I was no exception. (During one of my police contacts helped me understand the difference.)

So what do robbery and burglary really mean?

The basic difference between burglary (penal code section 459), and robbery (211) is that burglary involves entering somewhere you're not supposed to be with the intent to commit a crime, and robbery is using force or fear to take personal property.

Lets look at the actual code sections:

459.  Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse or other building, tent, vessel, as defined in Section 21 of the Harbors and Navigation Code, floating home, as defined in subdivision (d) of
Section 18075.55 of the Health and Safety Code, railroad car, locked or sealed cargo container, whether or not mounted on a vehicle, trailer coach, as defined in Section 635 of the Vehicle Code, any house car, as defined in Section 362 of the Vehicle Code, inhabited camper, as defined in Section 243 of the Vehicle Code, vehicle as defined by the Vehicle Code, when the doors are locked, aircraft as defined by Section 21012 of the Public Utilities Code, or mine or any underground portion thereof, with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary.  As used in this chapter, "inhabited" means currently being used for dwelling purposes, whether occupied or not.  A house, trailer, vessel designed for habitation, or portion of a building is currently being used for dwelling purposes if, at the time of the burglary, it was not occupied solely because a natural or other disaster caused the occupants to leave the premises.


211.  Robbery is the felonious taking of personal property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear.


212.  The fear mentioned in Section 211 may be either:
   1. The fear of an unlawful injury to the person or property of the
person robbed, or of any relative of his or member of his family;
or,
   2. The fear of an immediate and unlawful injury to the person or
property of anyone in the company of the person robbed at the time of
the robbery.

(This came from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html, where you can find more than you ever thought you wanted to know about California law)

There are strong-arm robberies, where someone takes property for someone else by means of intimidation or physical threat, and armed robberies, in which the robber uses a weapon.

Understanding some of the legal vocabulary police use has given me insight into the work they do, and I hope you've found it useful too.

I hope to take some time occasionally in this blog to mention common misconceptions and confusions about law enforcement and crime.

If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Take care,

Adam

Sometimes a traffic stop is just a traffic stop, and sometimes it's just the beginning.

One of the interesting things I've learned about police work is that sometimes the routine can lead to the extraordinary, and even the bizarre.

Take one traffic stop that occurred on Sunday morning, June 29.

It started out routine and ended with a woman and five boys arrested in connection with crimes including auto theft, vandalism, arson and burglary.

Here's how it unfolded:

Just before 9 a.m., a deputy pulled a sports utility vehicle over for a traffic violation near the intersection of Avenida de los Arboles and Calle Bouganvilla in Thousand Oaks, said Det. Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

The driver allegedly narrowly missed hitting a jogger, Buschow said.

Then, as the deputy was walking up to the vehicle, he learned it had been reported stolen.

Still pretty routine so far, right? But just wait.

At this point the driver - identified later as Tanita Baker, 31, of Simi Valley -- gunned it and took off, Buschow said.

Another deputy in the area gave chase, and after two minutes, the car stops, five boys get out and scatter, and Baker allegedly tries to escape over a fence.

Baker and four of the five boys are arrested at the scene. The fifth is nabbed five days later.

Meanwhile, Sheriff's deputies learn that five kids allegedly started a fire on a table at Los Cerritos Middle School and left.

When the boys - all 13 or 14 - were being questioned at the station, they admitted they'd been at the school, Buschow said.

As investigators followed up on the incident, they learned the five boys went to Los Cerritos Middle School early that morning, broke into five classrooms, committed various acts of vandalism and set a fire on a lunch table, Buschow said. Then they left and called Baker, whose son was among them.

Baker had recently gotten out of prison, said the detective. Not long after her release, she'd allegedly stolen an SUV.

Guess what car she used to pick up the kids? Really? Yup. That's the one, Buschow said.

More than two weeks later, Baker remains in Ventura County Jail. She's being held on suspicion of a parole violation, auto theft, child endangerment and evading and officer.

Three of the boys were booked into juvenile hall and two were cited and released to parents. They are facing charges of burglary, vandalism and arson, Buschow said.

All that from a two-minute pursuit.

Whenever crimes are similar, one of my first questions is: could it be a trend?

That's a question I was asking this morning when I learned Jose Luis Castro was killed during a confrontation outside a Camarillo party. Authorities believe the confrontation began after uninvited guests were asked to leave the party.

That reminded me, and others, of the tragic killing last month of Andrew John Singler. Something similar happened in that homicide, according to Singler's mother, who told me she spoke with numerous people who were there.

I also thought of the killing of Sophear Riem. Riem was shot to death in 2007 at a weekend bachelor's party in Port Hueneme. He and four other men were shot after the groom-to-be denied beer to uninvited guests and asked them to leave, Sophear's father told me.

These killings, like all homicides, are tragic and disturbing.

But as a reporter, I have to be very careful what I describe as a trend.

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines trends this way:

2trend
Function:
noun
Date:
circa 1777
1: a line of general direction or movement <the trend of the coast turned toward the west>
2 a: a prevailing tendency or inclination : drift <current trends in education> b: a general movement : swing <the trend toward suburban living> c: a current style or preference : vogue <new fashion trends> d: a line of development : approach <new trends in cancer research>
3: the general movement over time of a statistically detectable change; also : a statistical curve reflecting such a change
synonyms see tendency

The similar circumstances in these killings are striking, but they don't necessarily mean that parties are becoming increasingly dangerous.

Capt. Ross Bonfiglio of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department says violence at parties is something he's seen routinely over the years.

Sheriff's officials don't think there has been an increase in groups of people crashing parties and spoiling for deadly fights.

As he sees it, the problem is that parties often bring together alcohol and or drugs and young people, who sometimes have conflicts that escalate to violence. He called them the "perfect breeding ground for violence," in fact.

"We think this is somewhat of an age old problem," Bonfiglio said.

If it's an age-old problem as Sheriff's officials assert, it's still something to be concerned about, but it's not a "statically detectable change," so it's not a trend.

But we should keep watch, because whether or not it's a trend, one killing is too many. And even if it's not a trend, if we can learn how to prevent violence by looking at similar circumstances, that's a good thing.

How we can do that is one more question I need to keep asking.

In this case, the advice from the Sheriff's Department is general. Officials want party planners to think, before they host, that in just the wrong circumstances, things can go terribly awry.

Early this morning, an apparently disoriented 88-year-old Huntington Beach man headed out for a Taco Bell and ended up crashing into a light standard in Oxnard, roughly 90 miles away, police said.  The man did not appear to be hurt.

Accidents involving disoriented elderly drivers are fairly common, and discussions about traffic safety and seniors behind the wheel are happening worldwide.

Here are some examples of recent stories involving accidents and elderly drivers, and the debate around the issue:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/dec/16/behind-the-wheel-exams-sought-for-drivers-65-and/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/may/14/2-families-displaced-when-car-plows-into-public/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-02-older-drivers-usat1a_N.htm

http://www.aarp.org/family/articles/older_drivers_and_auto_safety.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/bal-md.drive30jun30,0,2891702.story

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=c98c551e-16b3-4977-976a-0a056c818fdb

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/16836935/detail.html

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/52206

Before I was hired by The Star, I never thought I wanted to do cops reporting. The cops beat is frequently the tragedy beat, and I didn't know how I would deal with the deep grief that surrounds many of the stories I would have to cover.

Often, I find myself building personal firewalls to keep stories in the work part of my brain. But at the same time, I think it's important to remember that tragedies have long tentacles and indelible dye.

As I was preparing today to cover a memorial walk for Jack Mabee, a young man who was killed when a car he was riding in was hit by a train last week, I thought of one such tentacle that touched me.

I thought of Ramsey Ellis.

I didn't know Ramsey that well, but his untimely death in a car crash left me with a feeling I've never forgotten.

I was a freshman at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills when I met Ramsey. He was a junior and close with a group of my older friends.

I remember him as a brilliant kid with wild curly hair.

When he was young he did some acting - he had a role in Batman Forever, if I'm checking correctly - and in high school, he was active in debate.

He was a fan of Friedrich Nietzsche and he sat on top of a cabinet in the corner of my history class. I think that was because there weren't enough chairs on the first day of class, but it quickly became the post from which he observed we merely mortal students and joked with our teacher, who was everybody's favorite.

I don't remember how many times I actually talked to Ramsey. It wasn't many.

That year he was involved in a car crash. I never learned the details. Frankly, I didn't read the newspapers much at that stage of my life.

I just remember being shocked when another student told me he had been declared brain dead. I remember our teacher crying, wondering if there was anything he could have done that would have put Ramsey at a different place at the all-important moment.

I remember skipping class to sit with grieving friends and finishing track practice early to go to a memorial.

I remember two of my older friends played guitar and sang at a little memorial on the quad, and that a tree was planted there with a plaque. We sat by it for years.

In addition to the grief that comes with knowing, even slightly, someone who dies tragically, Ramsey's death taught me that I, too, could know good, young people who could be snatched from this life by stupid accidents.

That terrified me, but it also taught me to value all those people around me persistently.
 
Maybe this is one of the reasons I think talking about the human side of tragedies is such an important part of my job.

It's important to remember.
 

Oh, you're a reporter ... so, what do you do?

When I tell someone I'm a crime and breaking news reporter, people frequently ask me what I actually do. It's an excellent question.

For all the time that people in this country spend talking about Media (with a big, scary capital "M"), most don't know how the stories that appear in newspapers are found, chosen and researched. And how would they? Unless you've been a reporter or been interviewed by one, you're mostly left to imagine the process, because we journalists generally don't spend much time explaining how our job works.

That's the idea for this blog. By giving you a peak behind the scenes on the crime and breaking news beat, we aim to give a fuller picture of how stories are born.

Let me give you an example:

Last week, I was at my computer working on small news items when I heard that a train had hit a car near Ventura. The accident was listed on the Ventura County Fire Department's web site, and it looked like someone had died.
I called the fire department to get as many details as I could, then grabbed a video camera rushed to the scene near Ventura with a Star photographer and an intern.

When we arrived we saw the train stopped alongside a farm field and a car that had been broken into two pieces.

Officials from the medical examiner's office were on scene, so we knew someone had died in the crash. At times like that I put up an emotional firewall. I am always sensitive to the fact that I'm dealing with a human tragedy, but I know we won't know about the person who tragically lost their life until medical examiners notify family members, so I focus on collecting the basic facts of the incident while remaining conscious that someone close by might know about the person who died.

I took some video of the scene, jotted a few notes, talked to a few train passengers who stepped outside to smoke and waited for the California Highway Patrol sergeant on scene to have a moment to talk to us.

After the interview, we rushed back to the office. I handed the video off to my friends in the digital media department, and they began editing. Meanwhile, I hustled to my computer and wrote up the story so we could put it online as soon as possible.

Later that night we learned from the medical examiners office that the young man who tragically lost his life was Jack Mabee, 17, of Oxnard.

When we learn the name of a person who was killed, the terrible reality of the tragedy really sinks in. At that point, we also have a new job to do. We do our best to learn whatever we can about the person who died in order to remember their life and explain as much as we can about the human tragedy of the incident.

In this case, we'll be learning about Jack by attending a walk in his honor on Thursday.

In addition to explaining the back story of the breaking news beat, we hope this blog will become a place where we can hear from you about public safety in Ventura County.

I'll be back with more soon when the scanner chatter gets interesting.

Stay safe.