You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The perp walk down.
I don’t know if it is the best walk down I ever did.
I have forced confessions from murderers before.
I don’t know if it is the most angry walk down I ever did.
I have been kicked, threatened and spit on before.
I don’t know if it is the most intense walk down I have ever done.
I have questioned child molesters, murderers and white collar criminals all of high intellect who either spoke not a word, or spoke eloquently saying nothing.
Last night? Well, last night might have been, if nothing else, the longest walk down I ever did.
My Tuesday night starts like so many.
Text. Calls. Emails.
“What ya got? What ya got?”
I pitch a story of importance, but it is shot down immediately.
“Nobody cares about that county,” I am told by people smarter than me.
Suddenly the story well is dry.
“What you got?” the producer asks repeatedly.
“Nothing, you shot down my best stories.”
Minutes later, the news juggernauts assign me to an evening press conference.
It’s an important story, but I will see other reporters and photographers there so I all ready hate it. If I see other news crews, then I feel like I’ve lost. The day is a waste. In my mind, I’m paid to dig new dirt.
“A vacation day,” I bellow with indifference.
“What do you mean?” the producer says.
“One stop shopping. Add water and stir. Talk to 2 people shoot a candle and a tear drop and a sign and it’s done. Easy live shot. Who cares, right? It’ll be on every channel. We won’t look any different than the other guys”
The producer knows I’m right. She doesn’t like Who Cares? Nobody should like who cares?
Suddenly my phone rings. My phone always rings.
“Church burglars just captured,” the anonymous voice on the other end says.
I shoot the producer an update. “YOU INTERESTED?”
“You are off vacation,” she writes back.
An hour later, I find myself at the bucolic sheriff’s department.
I’ve been spinning yarns from this country bumpkin city for 18 years. I love this place. It’s crazy. It’s a jail house interview waiting to happen. It’s detectives who don’t trust their mommas, but give me story after story cause they know I don’t know who they are, meaning I will protect their identity, their words, their information.
And as far as walk downs? Well, now I can add the longest walk down I ever did to the list.
I interview the sheriff. A tall, chiseled man with a body of steel and hair whiter than an Alaskan winter.
He says he is 66 years old today, as a matter of fact. But I don’t believe it. His eyes sparkle and his smile is wide and he has a caring heart as big as a field barn.
He is a caricature of a country sheriff. He has a twang in his voice and a simple way of dealing with complex problems.
In his county, if you break the law, he comes and gets ya.
On this day he is telling me about two teenagers who allegedly broke into a number of churches. They didn’t desecrate the churches. They didn’t really steal anything of value in the 2 churches. They allegedly just kicked in some doors and took what they could find. The sheriff says they were looking to buy drugs.
One of the teens is not cooperative with investigators. He won’t confess or roll on the other guy, so in police vernacular, he’s no good to them.
Cops always want something from a bad guy. A confession, a deal, information, another clue to another case. There are plenty of deals to make in the back room of any police station.
“He won’t roll on his buddy,” I am told.
That means it’s time to flush the kid into the criminal justice system.
“How you want to do this?” the sheriff asks, his steely blue eyes beaming on this warm spring evening.
“We can walk him all the way to the jail. It’s such a pretty night.”
He is serious. His face is hard, like Stonehenge.
I laugh. All the way to the jail? I look at the main facility about 250 yards from the detective annex we are standing in front of.
My brain is a visual Rolodex of walk downs. The longest walk down to this point might have been the FBI putting the car 50 yards away so I could walk down a Child Rapist.
“Make the guy cry,” the FBI agent said as the door opened and the little perp entered my field of vision.
50 yards is a long walk with a guy in handcuffs and a guilty conscience.
I look at the jail and the sidewalk from the jail and the driveway leading to the sidewalk to the jail and the long driveway that separates the buildings and the annex on top of a hill. It is going to be a long walk, I think to myself.
“I like it,” I say calmly.
My photographer is new.
“Ever walk someone down before? I ask.
“Nope.”
“You’re gonna love this.”
If you have a heart for news, you gotta love the walk down.
Bad on display. A walking confessional. The soul of evil being battered, scoured, dissected, chastised.
It’s beneficial and worthless all at the same time.
I love it.
My buddy Paul Dunn and I were experts. Actually he was the master. I was just good.
Wax on Wax off.
“Did you kill him?”
Paul was brutal, relentless, blunt as a mallet in a rail yard.
Paul had so many courthouse murder confessions, I lost count.
He was perhaps a better psychiatrist than cameraman. And he was a damn good cameraman.
I realized early on that not every reporter will do a walk down. Many have no idea you can do a walk down. They wouldn’t know what to say if they did engage a criminal.
I on the other hand need them and love them and feel an odd energy supplied by the bad guy.
It’s as if I get to steal his soul, dissect his idiotic brain, match wits with a witless fool.
How much fun. It’s Disney land with handcuffs and striped coveralls.
I told another reporter once. “Look. It’s a long walk. I’ll ask him a few questions. Then I’ll shut up and you ask him a few questions. That way you won’t have to use my voice in your story. You can use your own voice in your own story.”
The perp walks out. I bark out two questions and stop. I look at the the reporter. I wait for him to ask anything. He says nothing. So I bark out 2 more questions. I pause and wait for him to say something. He simply walks with the walk down, like a spectator. I bark out 2 more questions.
By this time the perp is put in the car and it drives away.
Game. Set. Match.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
The guy is such a wet noodle, I don’t even remember what he said.
That night on the news; his story was filled with my voice asking every single question.
I wonder how he explained that to his boss.
Just then, the church burglar exits the annex.
There is always that surprised look. He is more than a deer in the headlights. He is a possum about to get run over by a train.
“Hey there buddy how ya doing?” I’m always friendly. It’s just business to me.
He mumbles something.
Mumbling? That’s par for the course as I launch into my 1st question.
“So they tell me you kicked in the door to the church?”
He looks at me. He is surprised. “They can say whatever they want to say.”
“Is that true?”
“No. It is not.”
My camera man is back pedaling. I am holding my microphone. The perp is handcuffed and flanked by two armed detectives. His jeans are dirty and his shirt tight. He is 19 years old, but he seems older. He is a big boy, thick, like a lineman who chews hayseeds when he’s not stealing.
“You a man of God?”
This question catches him off guard. Frankly, it catches me off guard. I never know what I might say.
I look up from the walk down and we are heading down the driveway from the annex toward the street that separates the two buildings.
Wow! Still so much walk down to go.
“Yes. I’m Catholic,” he responds.
“What kind of person would break into a church?”
“I don’t know. What kind of person would break into a church,” he retorts. I can tell he’s no dummy. He is educated.
Now we are on the road. We are half way there. I am running out of questions.
“So what do you think your mom and dad will think when they see this?”
He looks at me perplexed. “They don’t watch your channel.”
I almost want to laugh. That would be a terrible promo.
“They might tonight, I say, not missing a beat.
“Then I’d say hi mom and dad.”
Again, I want to chuckle. It’s funny. The whole interview is amusing. The distance, the Q & A. All of it.
We are 2 minutes into the walk down. We are now close to the sidewalk that leads to the jail.
“So if yo didn’t do it. What would you say to the church burglar who did kick in the door, since you are taking the rap for it?”
This angers him. I see his face twitch.
“I’d tell him to F*** off!”
I laugh out loud. I can’t help myself.
“That isn’t very church like,” I say.
I slow my pace letting everyone know, I’m done.
The camera man spins around and focuses on the man’s handcuffs.
The detectives give me a sly smile as if to say they loved it.
I loved it.
It’s a rejuvenating cup of coffee for my news soaked soul.
I walk up the hill to the annex. The country sheriff is now in his sheriff mobile preparing to go home.
“How’d it go?” he says with a smile.
“He’s Catholic,” I said laughing. “He wouldn’t burglarize a church.”
I laugh.
“He said that?” The sheriff grins.
“That and a lot of other stuff.”
The sheriff puts it in gear.
“I’ll be excited to hear the whole thing on the news tonight,” he says his blue eyes gleaming.
“yes sir. thanks for everything.”
The sheriff begins to drive off.
“Hey,” i shout.
He stops.
“Happy birthday tomorrow,” I say.
He waves out the window. I can see his smile in the side view mirror as he slowly rolls down the hill.
The walk down. Part luck. Part art. Part carnival ride with few rules.
Life’s Crazy™