Denver Post photog witnesses shooting, uploads every photo

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/10/12/denver-protest-shooting-photos-full-sequence/

I’m sure this was touched on in the Trump thread but there’s a pretty major journalism element to this Denver shooting, as well.

First, the shooter was hired by local TV to guard their reporter. Then it happened within five feet or so of a Denver Post photog who caught it all.

Finally, the Post has published the entire sequence, from the victim seemingly slapping at the shooter and spraying him with mace, to the shot to the guy falling to the ground and laying there dead.

I’m not sure what to think beyond I can’t remember the media being tied up in something like this in so many ways.

 

Terrible moment.

I guess I'd ask if it's routine now in larger markets for news crews to hire armed "security" like this.

Fairly routine in conflict zones overseas, certainly, but hiring some local mook to carry a gun into a protest seems like a recipe for disaster. As was the case here.

 

At a newspaper in Jamaica, reporters/photogs were required to be driven to/from assignments. The drivers acted as bodyguards.

One of them helped me one day. School was starting and the paper assigned me to go shoot kids getting onto a school bus in the morning. A rasta saw me taking the photos and became furious and began to walk briskly toward me, yelling and then he raised his machete. My driver stepped in and told the rasta to stop and STFU before explaining the situation. I was glad to have the driver that day. On other days during early morning police roundups, street gangs stopped us from turning down certain streets and tried to "tax" the drivers who told them to STFU and simply drove around the barriers of broken bedsprings and toilets and things of that nature.

 

We've had security working with our reporters when they cover protests this year. We started after one of our female reporters was attacked by someone who thought knocking a 20-something girl on her ass on TV would be hilarious.

I don't believe they are armed.

I'm pretty sure Bay Area crews had security with them full time a few years ago because they were constantly being robbed of their gear at gunpoint.

 

I actually hadn’t realized that part. That’s good.

It’s seemed to me like everyone has been pretty transparent about everything, 9News, The Post, etc. But I haven’t been entirely plugged in all the way so maybe there’s something I’ve missed. The Post can’t do much more than release the entire sequences of photos.

My gut feeling is the guy will get off on self defense, but it’s amazing to see in comment sections people of whatever political persuasion contort themselves to make this fit stances on other shootings.

 

The private security guard suspected of fatally shooting a man at the scene of tense protests in Denver last weekend will be charged with second-degree murder, the local district attorney announced Thursday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/15/matthew-dolloff-charged-murder/