Eyewitness

It's easy to understand why members of the military suffer from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.  Life in a war zone, being a front row witness to death and injury to a member of your company, or even your "enemy" can and does, understandably leaves a mark, or scar on your psyche.

Recently The National Center for PTSD released a study that suggest, journalists too regularly suffer from PTSD, almost on a daily basis.  I noticed the study on my phone for a few seconds as I waited for a public information officer to come and give me some details about a man who had run over his girlfriend during a fight.

At first I scoffed at the idea that journalists could suffer from the same issues that plague soldiers, police officers and emergency responders, then, as I stuffed my phone in my pocket, a woman, who later told me she was the victims aunt, rushed to the edge of the crime scene tape wailing, and sobbing, "Oh my God! Oh my God!"  She anguished with tears streaming from her eyes, causing pronounced black streaks to angle around her cheeks, and drop on her white blouse leaving a dark spot above her clavicle.  As she thrust her arms into the sky, asking for answers, I found myself obligated, I had to intrude into her inner pain to see if I could find any answers about what had happened.  "Tell me! Tell me!" she pleaded with me, "what do you know, please, what do you know!"  I solemnly explained to her that a man had run over a woman during an argument, and she was taken to the hospital in critical condition, "Oh God, That's my niece, Oh Lord, that's my baby!" She then ended our conversation abruptly, "I don't have nothing to say to you!"  Then a friend coddled her head against her chest, while darting a look of absolute hatred deep into my eyes, as she ushered the grieving aunt on a crooked line to the curb where the 2 sat down, and wept privately.

"All in a days work," I thought to myself, as I peered over the police tape at officers taking pictures near a pile of bloody clothes, and talking with witnesses, while dutifully scribbling details into their small notebooks.  After the news cast, as I drove silently back to the station, I thought again about the PTSD study, and realized, no matter how much I wanted to deny it, I had just been through a traumatic experience.  Clearly nothing like the victim of this horrible crime, or her aunt, stricken with a terror punctuated by a lack of details, but a trauma non-the-less.  I found myself at the edge of tragedy, cloaked by shear grief, forced to insert myself into a private moment of despair, and engulfed in the usual rampant hate of the "media."

During my 20 years career I have witnessed plenty of horrifying scenes.  The remains of a woman struck by a train, and a man who smashed through his windshield during a Thanksgiving Day auto accident.  Early one morning on I-90 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, I stood under a dark, humid Mississippi sky as the highway patrol unraveled white sheets over the bodies of 5 teenagers who where riding in the back of a pickup that crashed into the jersey barrier late that night.

I've always been able (I thought) to bury the grisly carnage into a mental grave inside my brain.  Like the time my partner and I interviewed a woman whose only daughter had been struck by the school bus she was waiting for one morning.  The mother, heartbroken and likely sedated, spoke to us for  a few scattered moments and we left.  In our news vehicle, my partner poured himself behind the wheel, sat silently for a few minutes, then turned to me, "I can't do this anymore," he said as his  eyes filled with tears.  A few weeks later he quite, went home to live with his parents and took a job at a toilet seat factory in northern Mississippi.

It affects you, you feel it, but, are forced to move on, sometimes without properly processing what you have witnessed.

A few days after that woman had been struck by her boyfriend's Lincoln Town Car, I interviewed her mother.  She was stoic, but scared, and broke.  She was now  caring for her daughter's 2 children, and was unsure how she would pay for the medical bills climbing exponentially literally by the minute.

I thought about her for several hours after the interview, but had moved on to other stories the next day.  Last week it was announced the woman struck by the car was dead.  As I heard the news, I picked up the phone, breathed in and out, then dialed her mother's phone number.

Agents, Guns and Carrots

"Excuse me!" comes a shout from the back of the large Bluebird bus, the kind of bus you rode to fifth grade, or to summer camp, "Is there a reason we are stopping?!" the woman with the "Decision 2012" baseball cap bellows to an unusual man with a clipboard and a mustache you would find only on "The Simpson's" Ned Flanders, or in a novelty bin at costume shop.

First on the bus headed to watch Air Force One arrive at HAFB

The mustached man answers gently, "we're waiting for a security escort."  The woman who is a member of the national media pool who regularly follows the president when he travels, loudly pounds on the screen of her smart phone, and jabbers at some nameless producer back in New York, "It's ridiculous, we're just sitting here just waiting, I don't know when we are getting out of here!"  

I thought her loud protests were odd, the bus had only stopped for a couple of minutes when the she started to squirm restlessly.  Granted we did have to get off a previous bus because the military driver couldn't get it to move.  My guess is, she's been traveling with President Obama for some time, and is likely growing exhausted with security, badges, Secret Service agents with their shortly cropped hair gazing sternly at her as they pass a grey handheld metal detector across her body every couple of days.

The president, for the first time since he was elected came to Utah last week, and with him lumbered the most awe-inspiring cavalcade of trucks, buses, guns, agents, cars, black suits, shaved heads, and pre-screened, photo opportunities I'd ever seen in my 20 years as a reporter.  

In Salt Lake City, the Sheraton Downtown had become a fortress.  It was surrounded on all four sides, by dozens of buses, and dump trucks, the building was swarming with men with short hair, and black suits and uniformed members of the military, some of them, with machine guns drawn, were jogging here and there around the unspectacular 6 story hotel.  The White House and a hotel spokesperson hilariously wouldn't confirm if the president was staying at the unassuming hotel.  I had an image of the manager of the Sheraton, standing at the front counter, while he talks to a reporter on the phone, "I cannot confirm or deny if the President is staying here," as he's being frisked by a Secret Service agent while bomb sniffing dogs tugged at his pant leg,.

My badge

On an uncomfortably chilly evening, I stand in line with as many as 50 other journalists, as a Secret Service agent shuffles through a  pile of media badges, asking curtly, "Name," I glance over and see a black and tan German Shepard jutting his nose into my satchel, which I'd placed in a line of backpacks, camera bags, and purses, piled on after the other in the patchy grass and dirt.  The dog's nose burrowing deep into my business made me nervous, not because I had anything to hide, at least I don't think I do, but because I had a Tupperware container filled with pepperoni and cheese.  I was already hungry, and I could imagine the overworked K-9 gobbling up my dinner leaving me with nothing but a Ziploc filled with baby carrots.  The dog and
its handler finally moved on from my bag, and I exhaled with relief as another agent goosed me with a grey wand.  It bleeped, and wailed while the serious looking officer floated the device over my hips and across my outstretched arms.  

As Utah Dignitaries streamed onto Hill Air Force Base to meet the President, I noticed 2 distinct moods coming from the guests, the Democrats, like Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker appeared giddy, while the Republicans, including Governor Gary Herbert, Sen. Orrin Hatch and Congressman Rob Bishop looked like football fans being forced to attend the opera.

When Air Force One rolls giantly down the tarmac, it is impossible not to be impressed, the 4,000 square foot flying fortress has two kitchens large enough to feed 100 people.  It also has a complete operating room to take care of any medical emergency.

The president hopped off the roll-away staircase and gave the Governor an enthusiastic handshake, then a few minutes later was working the rope line shaking hands with soldiers and base personnel who'd been invited to meet him.  As the President slowly reached for outstretched hands, his presidential limo, which is actually a sturdy black, muscular SUV, rolls slowly beside him, mirroring his movements, with a Secret Service agent perched on the open back passenger door, both hands clutching it, ready to slam it closed as soon as the president steps inside. I was busy reporting the unfolding visit live, so I didn't get to take much else in, but I did notice, the governor marching grimly behind the President, not used to playing second fiddle and waiting for the cheers and smiles to simmer down so Obama and the leader of the state could finally step inside the sleek black car.

Air Force 1 arrives at HAFB

As the massive motorcade, some 20 vehicles long, whisked the Presidential entourage to an "undisclosed" hotel in Salt Lake City, Congressman Bishop heads back to his car. "Congressman!" a gaggle of reporters try to wave him over to the bank of awaiting cameras.  Bishop, with his distinctive shock of white hair, seems reluctant to talk about his brief visit with the President, but we persuade him to talk to us anyway.  "Supposedly I'm on a round table with the president in the morning," the congressman tossed nonchalantly, "Do I think he'll listen to me? No? but anytime the president comes to your state, no matter who it is, Utah will show him a good time."  Bishop begins to walk away, "What do you think the traffic will be like in Salt Lake?" I ask only half serious, he smiles, "I don't know, I'm going the other way, so that's your problem,"  he jokes.

The next day its more security, and a scheduled speech by the President, With a flurry a freshly waxed SUV pulls up urgently among the Solar panels, and a few minutes later, under the eye of soldiers dressed in black cargo pants and holding sniper rifles, and scopes, the President casually sauntered to the podium, gives an unremarkable, 7-minute speech, shakes a few hands, and just like that, is gone.

Me: Near, but not on AF1

The storm is over, so I slump into a white folding chair anchored in dirt, and reach into my satchel to find that bag of baby carrots I hand't eaten the day before. Just then Congressman Bishop walks past, and I hold out my baggie filled with tiny carrots. He peeks in, selects his favorite and plucks it out. As he eyes it, I hold up a container of hummus and offer it to him, "No thanks, just the one," he squints, instantly regretting the refusal, I suspect.  "Well," I joked, "you can't take gifts anyway." He smiles, "do I have to give this back?" He grins, and tosses the carrot in his mouth as he walks away.  I thought to myself, "what would have happened had I offered the President a carrot?"  My guess is, it would have included the Secret Service, a black and tan German Shepard, and maybe another hand held metal detector.

Raging

Her neon pink ponytail whipped and snapped like the tail of a wounded gelding, as she raged and frothed at me and photographer Nick Steffens, "Don't say a f*&king word to them!" Jolene shrieked, to her mother who was standing in the driveway, Jolens voice reminding me of blade being dragged sharply across a pane of glass. "They're just like those @$$holes at (competing station), they don't give a F*$k about the truth!"  Jolene then catapulted a ragged, hastily packed suitcase into her mother's trunk.

Jolene's rage, seemed like it was as much a part of her as the nose on her face, and likely predated the long, meandering scar that dragged across her forehead, and that anger was there long before Nick and I parked our news truck in front of her Tooele, Utah home.  The fact that a news reporter was rapping on her front door, was just the ingredient necesary to force Jolene's purculating fury to unleash.

Jolene's 9 year old sister Caessea (pronounced Casey) had died in an ATV Accident, and Caessea's mother, Necole Anderson, who had tested positive for Valium and marijuana had just been charged with Automobile homicide because of that revelation.

"They don't give a sh*t how the drugs got in her, they  just want your story!" Casey fumed, directing her comments at her mom rather than us, "Don't tell them anything!" Jolene belched.

"What do you mean, How?" I asked gently, trying to extinguise her internal flames, "The EMT's they gave my step mom Valium right here!  Necole was freaking out, so they gave it to her to calm her down!"  Jolene, who was either born without a left hand or had lost it in an accident, began to downshift her mood, like a Boeing 757 just seconds after landing.

"Wait," I said "You're saying that emergency workers gave your step mother Valium after the accident, and now police are charging her with auto homicide, in part, because she had Valium in her system?"  "Yes!" Jolene," crossed her arms, "my mom wasn't driving around high on Valium, she got it after."  "Well would you be willing to tell us that on camera?" I asked softly.  It was as if Jolene was a balloon and I could see her filling with rage once again, "NO!  The last reporters just left out everthing, they didnt tell any of it!"  She turned and barreled into the house, tearing at a well-worn screen door nearly yanking it off it's hinges.  She returned with a stained pillow and body slammed it into the backseat of her mother's Chrysler.

"Now listen, I said, stepping closer to the panting woman, I looked in her eyes and told her, "If you don't tell us this part of the story right now, it will never be heard."  She panted, and glanced painfully at the open field that borders her family home.  For a moment, I notice her glance at the rusty barbed wire, that encases the crab grass, empty beer cans, and discarded tires in that wide expanse.   When the ATV crashed Caessea was tossed against that fense.  Jolene's  mother later told me, Ceassea lived for a moment after the crash "My neck hurts," Cassea would exlaimed in fear before slumping onto the ground.

After talking to Anderson, Jolene agreed to do an interview with us, she told us about the Valium, and how good of a mother she believed Anderson to be.  When I asked about Caessea, Jolene beamed and grinned for a moment, giggling as she recalled, what a "Diva" her little sister was, for a second, the ache of rage was calmed and I could see the little girl that once lived inside her.  After Nick lowered the camera, I turned to Jolene, and said, "Look at you, You're just a softy," she batted her eyes, perhaps remembering life before the rage, then her eyebrows furrowed again as she snatched a lighter from her pocket and sparked her cigarette, as she sucked the filter, the ember burned bright orange, the ease lifted, and the rage returned, "but I'm also a Pitbull," she squinted, flinging her cigarette into the dirt, and grinding it to dust under her foot.

Ghosts Of The Past

"Did you hear that?  She says and I swivel my head quickly to spy the middle aged Polynesian woman, her face stricken with fear.

Front of the Powell Home

Fali's eyes are transfixed on the dusty lines of the air vent that runs against the wall outside the bedroom where Josh and Susan Powell used sleep every night.  Until of course, Susan vanished without a trace in 2009, and Josh unceremoniously packed his bags and left.  Later, he would brutally kill his two young boys in a murderous house fire.

"Do you hear it?" Fali repeats her desperate question.  "No," I answer, "What did you hear?"  "Did you hear the crying?" she demands as she continues her gaze, uninterrupted at the air vent. "Sometimes it sounds like children crying," she describes the terrorizing sound to me, "sometimes it sounds like a moan, but a moan far far away.

Fali, her daughter Joanna and their family have lived in the home formerly owned by the Powell's for 2 months, and they say from the moment they turned the deadbolt, something just hasn't been right. That is why they moved out a couple of days ago.

Photographer Nick Steffens

Joanna is angry because she says, the property management company who  is renting the home out on behalf of the Powell trust, did not tell her about the tragic history of the home.  Joanna, whose family doesn't watch TV, says she hadn't even heard of the Powell's until neighbors filled her in a month ago.

The family has invited us into their lives and the home to do a story on their anger at the leasing company.  But it turns out their anger is eclipsed by their fear of this house.

In addition to the phantom cries of children Joanna says she found her toddler atempting to usher people away who don't exist, "no, no, go!" the little boy reportedly chirped to an empty wooden swing dangling motionless outside the Powell home.

Early one morning, as Joanna's nephew slept in the living room, the garage door came to life, rattling and groaning as it opened.  The nephew found himself standing in a dark garage, the door gaping open.

The day the family was told by neighbors of the history of the home they shared with the Powell's, they stood, huddled around a laptop, in the Powell's pre-fab kitchen tapping search words into Google.  They say every time they attempted to play an archived news story on Youtube of the mind boggling case of Susan and Josh Powell, the lights in the living room and kitchen would mysteriously shut down. After three attempts, and three blackouts, the family decided to stop tempting fate.

Powell Garage

As Joanna wrenched the key counterclockwise to let me in, I felt quick anticipation as I prepared to enter a home that has consumed literally hundreds of hours of my time over the last 6 years.

I can recall standing on the front stoop of this home in December of 2009, pondering why the glass window next to the door was broken, and calling my boss to tell him "I think something isn't right here."

What is most remarkable about being inside the Powell home, is how simply unremarkable it is.

Kitchen

It is clean, the carpet is relatively new, and the house has been redone inside since the Powell's lived here. There is no evidence that Susan and Josh ever even existed in this space.

The home doesn't feel like it was built with any particular passion, it is likely one of hundreds of houses, tossed on a slab of cement in the late 80's or early 90's in this part of West Valley City.  It is like one of a thousand Chrysler LeBaron's that rolled soullessly off of a Detroit assembly line around the same time this home was being propped up.

This house is empty, in more ways than one.   I suppose I expected to "feel" Susan's presence, or "sense" the supernatural from which Joanna and her mother were running away, when they packed their boxes, and loaded a moving van.  I didn't.  I was however feeling edgy, as though this is a place I shouldn't' be.  As if this nondescript place, in a sea of monotonous tract homes, should be treated with more respect than I was giving it.  As if this was a solemn shrine, encased, in drab vinyl siding from Sears.

I'm not inclined to believe in ghost stories, and I don't have a strong connection to the paranormal, but, for whatever reason, I believe that Joanna and her family have experienced "something" here, because it is clear, "something" did happen,but sadly, we may never know what.

How Dare You!

"You need to move off my lawn!" The man says, surrounded by all the trappings of suburban life.  He is shoe-horned into a pair of tight khakis shorts and is addressing an army of journalists camped out on the grass patch across the sidewalk from his lawn.  Although I know this thatch isn't actually his property, I'm not in the mood to argue, I'm focused on something more important, so I step off the Kentucky Blue onto the curb.  The "more important" is an equally as large army of FBI agents currently rifling through the records, and under the mattress inside the home of Utah's former Attorney General, John Swallow.  Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff have been under investigation for months, and are believed to have taken bribes and built a political machine, unrivaled (or perhaps yet undiscovered) in modern Utah politics.  The FBI and other state agencies have decided to serve search warrants on the homes of both men on this day.

Agents search home of John Swallow (Salt Lake Tribune)

The round man indignantly snatches a reporter's laptop off the grass he does not own, and drags it and it's attachments of plastic outlets, including a metallic hard drive, all jangle, and clank together like a high tech wind chime in a torrent blast.  I'm having trouble focusing on the stunned reporter as she yanks the computer out of the man's hands, because of the surreal event playing out across the street.  Two young boys, likely 8 and 10, have been tasked, likely by their parents, to sojourn to the Swallow's home.  The clueless toe heads are dutifully toting a plastic crate of store bought cookies.  I'm stunned.  The house is currently inhabited, by Swallow and his wife, but also by at least a dozen armed, and highly trained, and always on edge, FBI agents.  The boys innocently knock on the door and are met by a harried, federal agent, who is knee-deep in FBI sternness, but also understands, these poor kids have no idea what their mother has likely sent them to do.

Former Attorney General John Swallow

She opens the door and finds herself wrestling with the screen door while trying to balance the cookies, and use her leg as a broom to sweep the Swallow's family dog back into the house. The boys, still blissfully unaware of the minor chaos they have created in her world, pet the pup as he bobs and weaves around the agent's ankle.  Finally she wrangles the dog, stuffs the cookies under her arm and give a quick glance to the cameras across the street and yanks the screen door shut, the boys seem a bit confused, I can almost imagine their thoughts, "That's not how Missus Swallow acts when we bring cookies."

I'm debating heading over and asking the boys who told them to deliver snickerdoodles into the middle of the state's most high profile criminal investigation when a fine mist of water coats my face.  The angry neighbor in too short shorts and sensible Rockport shoes, has turned on the sprinklers, hoping for a frenzied retreat of soggy reporters. Most just snicker, cover the sensitive parts of their electronic equipment and move out of the gentle squirt.  "It's on a timer," he says arms folded, grinning and satisfied, as if he finally assembled a kitchen hutch from Ikea.

As I flick the water droplets off my shirt, a small man in a starched blue button down and ironed slacks saddles up to me, as if he has something to say, but he is silent.  I know he is preparing a monologue so I stand quietly and wait.  "So this is news?" He asks, as if I'm poolside at a squirrel skiing contest (which would be awesome if it existed)  I turn to him, as he stares at the modest ranch style home currently filled with agents, his eyes shaded by Rayban's.  "Well when search warrants are served at the homes of 2 former attorney's general in one day, I'd argue, yes, that is news," I say.

Former Attorney General Mark Shurtleff

He lazily shrugs off my explanation, "This has been going on for 2 years," he says continuing his gaze towards the home.  "What could you possibly say about this?" he asks with slight annoyance, I respond "probably something like: The investigation into 2 former attorney's general continues, both could be charged with felony crimes.  Maybe something like that?" I retort, again he's unimpressed.  "Do you live in this neighborhood?" I ask, "sort of, that's my father in laws home," he unfolds his arms long enough to point to the house currently flanked by black, nondescript FBI sedans with dark tinted windows and odd antenna protruding from their roofs.  That pretty much ends the conversation, but he continues to stand close uncomfortably close to me, as an older man conspicuously points his smart phone at reporters, shooting video, to let us know he is watching or to give us a taste of our own medicine I suppose.

This neighborhood is ferociously supportive of John Swallow. You might even say rabidly so. Rabid devotion is the only way to explain, how usually mild moms in Toyota Corrolas, can find themselves speeding past you and screaming, "Leave him alone you vultures!!"

Later I hear that a fellow reporter at the Shurtleff home has been harassed and threatened by neighbors there.  someone, she says, even threw a baseball at her during her live report.

As we pack up for the night, the neighbor who choreographed the strategically timed sprinkler assault is on his knees in a puddle of water in front of a fractured, spewing sprinkler head.  "Dad!" his young son shouts, as the man attempts to avoid the spewing plastic valve, "The water is broken!" the man, with both hands around the fountain, says, "It was worth it," as water fills the pockets of his snugly fitting shorts.

For God's sake, Tell Me You're Kidding.

He shuffles incessantly through his series of grotesque green, and red protest signs, eyes darting robotically from left to right as his young son, stands obediently in the Utah sun, squinting disinterested as the wind rocks and whips the boys cardboard placard about, jerking his tiny little arms back and forth.  

I met the man on the left

"Pray for More Dead Soldiers," reads one sign, "America Is Doomed," says another, and then of course there is the most infamous, and most recognizable placard, "God Hates Fags."  These two people are from the clownish freak show known as the Westboro Baptist Church, and they are right here in Utah, protesting the funeral of a dead soldier.

It was probably 2001 or 2002, when I met the two members of this dirty little tribe.  I was covering the funeral of a fallen Utah serviceman when I came across the heavyset man and his child, pulling out their garish placards from the back of a late model GMC Pacer.  I approached him with a long list of what I thought were intelligent questions that I was certain would make him recognize  how deplorable his actions were, but I soon learned, no minds would be changed today.  He had heard it all before, the questions, the insults, the attempts at reason, and his answers, after years of verbal evolution, were already carved in stone.  "Dueteronomy" followed by a series of numbers was an answer to one question, "Luke" and more numbers is the response to another. His answers are efficient, and practiced, rattled off with stale passion.  He never looks or really engages with me.  In his mind, it seemed to me, my questions are just background noise, to the louder, hideous hiss of rage and anger clanging loudly in his ears.  

After the funeral procession passes him by, he doesn't linger to savior his handy work, rather he and his son, quickly load up the Pacer, and skid off in their clown car of blackness, I assume in an effort to catch a funeral in Idaho or Colorado.

Pastor Fred Phelps

I thought about the mechanical encounter yesterday as news of the death of WBC pastor Fred Phelps broke.  Phelps, who ironically was baptized at the First Baptist Church In Vernal, Utah in 1947, founded the hate church in 1955. You've likely heard of this group.  The tiny biblical circus, has, 40 or so disciples, mostly blood member of the Phelps family.  They travel the country protesting funerals, claiming that the US is defending the gay lifestyle, and that God, in turn, is killing solders because of it, or something like that.

Calling WBC a fringe church is frankly an insult to good old fashion fringe churches, and no one really takes them seriously, but what is remarkable about Westboro is the grotesque brilliance of it's marketing.  

Of course we all know about their stunning signs and their protests, but the church, if you can call it that, also has a sophisticated multimedia and social media strategy that would make Procter and Gamble or Coca-Cola, stand up and take notice. If the church members attended a marketing seminar in Vegas and didn't mention who they were, only proclaiming their public relations success, "We've been featured in Time Magazine, Dateline, every local television station in the country, and on Al Jazeera," PR firms would be clamoring to hire them.  

The freak show

Westboro Baptist Church even has it's own Twitter feed that is very active.  In their banner picture, they feature their protestors hoisting those iconic signs,the band of misfits may be filled with insane hate, but at least they understand their brand. If you can believe it the church has more than 18,000 followers on twitter, undoubtedly those people are simply into shock porn, excited to check out Westboro's wacked out morning messages, so the indignant can rage and rail at the churches outlandish claims, as they gulp their morning coffee, and mutter with anger, and say "how could they?"

I found it odd, that this arrogant little tribe of inbreeds, so good at NOT listening to anyone, actually follows 20 different accounts, but when I look a bit deeper, I realized @WBCSays only followed other WBC accounts, all variations of the same demented theme, one account is called @GodHatesTheMedia etc.  

Today WBC posted a video spewing about the death of Pastor Phelps, a yawner of a diatribe filled with selected, and misinterpreted bible verses, vitriol and typical media bashing.  It wasn't the message, but the quality of the video production, granted low-budget, that struck me.  The Phelps who was talking in the video, was well lit and he was equiped with a microphone, so the sound quality was good and clean.  Something you don't often see with low-end productions like these. 

Also this group of hate mongers, isn't isolated from the material world.  They recently recorded a parody, of the popular song "Royals" by Lorde,  changing the words to" " Mockers will be screeching, it ain't fair, we'll be caught up with him in the air."  If this was featured in a movie poking fun at religious extremism, it would be a brilliant bit of send up, perfect comedy, in every way. 

I've always thought that Westboro's message was too ridiculous to believe.  So ridiculous in fact I wouldn't be surprised that if one day, the members of Westboro call a press conference and announce, "surprise!  It's all a joke!" and tell the world that WBC is actually a live art piece acted out by a troupe of SOHO performance artists testing us all to see if they could infiltrate the media with an outlandish and unbelievable messages.  "We did it!" they would exclaim, "We fooled you!" and then they'd return to their lofts in New York and drink Cosmopolitans, and would explain their groundbreaking experimental art to Charlie Rose against a black background.  

It hasn't happened...yet, but I'm hoping that this silliness is all an act, and that someday I'll see that heavyset man and his son, standing at that press conference.

    

  

Questions, Questions, Questions.

"What's the news doing here?"  Asks a slightly curved older man, as the phlegm rattles deep in his chest and he begins to cough a wet, violent hack.  "Oh," I say, a bit rushed, "just got some questions for someone in here."  "Well," he clears his throat as he climbs off of his well-worn purple bike, "someone's always got questions for folks in here," he drags his green, fatigue colored sleeve across his nose, and gathers up his plastic grocery bags, weary of more questions about the place he calls home.

Park Place Apartment 

People are asked a lot of questions at the Park Place Apartments at 350 East 700 South in Salt Lake City.  Police, and by default, the media, find themselves here regularly.

Over my 15 year in Utah, I've steadied  myself and entered the grey brick structure perhaps, 10 times.  The first time being the most memorable, when a man woke up one morning, snatched up a decorative sword, and began swinging it at people in his apartment.  The violence spilled into the street as the man, latched onto that blade, began chasing people around the neighborhood.

Kilmainham Jail

There are countless cases similar to that one, and it has cast a ghost of sadness that permeates and haunts this place.  You can see it in the tired faces and suspicious body language of the people who live here.  They are weary.  Most are simply trying to survive, and this campus of apartments reminds me of the now shuttered, Kilmainham Jail in Dublin.  My wife Amanda and I spent a couple a weeks there last year, and we toured the place.  Kilmainham, is a notorious "gaol", where Irish freedom fighters, were jailed, and executed on a regular basis.  Prison guards, would house men and children together inside the sickly, unheated halls of the wretched jail.  The corridors where long, and the cells small.

Kilmainham Jail

The halls of the Park Place are equally as long, and illuminated by cheap, incandescent bulbs that give the place an otherworldly glow.  As I roamed the long, lonely halls, lighted in puke green, the hue reminds me of a a woman on a flight I once took to my hometown of Dallas. Our plane was forging it's way into destabilizing turbulence.  As the jet jostled and rocked, I glanced over to the nice little lady next to me.  Her face was putrid with fear and nausea.

I'm here today because a man nicknamed "Ramen Noodle," used to date a woman who lives at the Park Place. She filed for a protective order against Noodle, back in 2009.  I was hoping she might be able to shed some light on the alleged crime spree for which Noodle had been recently arrested.

Park Place Apartments

The door opens slowly, and the small woman on the other side, only allows the flimsy door to reveal a sliver of her face.  "Hi, I'm Chris Jones, from 2News," she is unimpressed as she scans my clothing from top to bottom she's likely suspicious of my tie, and perhaps searching for a badge, or maybe a gun.  She takes a drag from her cigarette, "and?" she responds, as smoke unfolds out of her small apartment.  "I'm looking for Antoinette," I say as I hear the blast of children unleashing holy-hell in an apartment around the bend of the hall. "I told you to be quiet!" bellows the deep howl of a man who has had enough.

The woman, stares into my eyes, "I don't know."  She says, again pulling from her cigarette.  "Does she live here?" I ask.  "Why?" She retorts after a few seconds, and I explain the reason for my visit. "She's not here."  She deadpans.  "Is she working?"  I ask.  "I don't know."  She responds.  "She's at work?" I press, "yeah," the door begins to squeeze closed, "Where does she work?" I say realizing I might be wasting her and my time.  "I don't know."  

Eventually I earn a modicum of her trust and she agrees to calls Antoinette, who explains she stopped seeing Noodle because he roughed her up, and because he "got into drugs and pills," she continues, "he's always in jail," and she says, anticipating my next words, "I don't want to be on TV answering questions."

Eventually I make my way down the sad hall passed an old tube TV resting on the tile outside one of the apartments, to the news truck.  Outside I meet a man pushing a rattling grocery cart filled with cans, he asks "what's the news doing here?"  to which I say, "just asking some questions," As the man shuffles off, pressing his cart forward likely tired of getting questions and little else from people like me, curtly adds, to no one in particular "they've always got questions for people here."