I can’t even think of a good way to start this post. Last night an Elyria Police officer was killed when he responded to a neighborhood disturbance call on 18th Street in Elyria. James Kerstetter, a 15 year veteran was shot and killed. The man who shot him was also killed in a followup gun battle at the scene. Now we begin the terrible task of sorting out the details of the incident and planning the coverage of the funeral.

For me it’s not as simple as just pointing and clicking, knocking out a few good photos and calling it a day. I have always had a problem covering funerals, I let them get to me, I listen to the words that are being spoken and I look at the people mourning their loss. I allow myself to be a human and a photographer at the same time. I felt the loss of the soldiers from our area who have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have felt the pain of the families who lost their children to senseless gun and gang killings.

But this is different. This is going to hurt in an entirely different way. I am going to see some of the toughest guys I know in tears. I am going to see friends in real genuine pain, and I am going to have to photograph the flag draped coffin of a man that I counted as a friend and even more so, respected as a person and a police officer. My first thought was to just step away and let the other guys do it. Why put myself in that position. The media doesn’t have an opinion, when I work it’s as an impartial observer. I have to seperate my personal feelings from my professional obligations.

I don’t know that I will do a great job this time. I suspect it’s going to be difficult taking pictures of these people, his family, his children. Honestly, I guess my approach will have to be the same. Allow myself to feel and be human. I’m going in this with the mindset that I’m reporting on a terrible moment in the history of the Elyria Police Department. I’m going to do the best I can to honor the memory of one of the few really good men I know.

I shot a little video, it’s not quite ready for primetime but still an interesting look at what we do when stuck waiting hour upon hour waiting for the president to arrive for his Town Hall Meeting at LCCC in Elyria.

Checkout the tons of equipment required to pull this off. The Secret Service and the advance teams from The White House do this almost nonstop.

What a week. My trip to Haiti falls through, I covered a tragic plane crash that took the lives of four people, and now the president is coming to town on Friday.

There is such a massive difference between covering Obama the candidate and Obama the president. When the candidate came to town it was a pretty simple deal for us. Bring your drivers license and something that at least looks like a press pass and your in. 

My how times have changed. Secret Service agents have been in town chasing down dummies that post threatening comments about the president on Facebook. Apparently they are pretty serious about that kind of thing. I’m sure it was a little awkward for the guy who was at work when two Secret Service agents showed up to discuss his stance on their newest boss. Military helicopters have been flying around and several reporters and photographers are being cleared through the Whitehouse and credentialed for the visit.

The hassles are part of the job for us but if you find yourself in the area between the airport and the college Friday you might as well forget about trying to get anywhere. Intersections in the dozens will be locked down for the length of the presidents visit.

If you are interested in following along check out www.Chroniclet.com we will be posting updates the entire day. Essentially it comes down to an all hands on deck situation. It’s not everyday the president rolls into town.

Well it’s Monday morning and a few days ago I thought I would be on the road to New York City for a flight to Haiti. Instead I’m in the office trying to get the word on a new departure date.

At this point we have two options, hopefully the FAA opens the airport and we can fly directly to Port Au Prince. The other possibility is flying to the Dominican Republic and going overland into the disaster zone. The borders have been closed for a few days so we need them to open up.

With every day that passes the situation grows more dire in Haiti, some estimates have millions of people homeless or dislocated. The team will be traveling with medical equipment and money to buy any supplies they can get their hands on.

In the end I’m not too upset by the small delay. I’ve been fighting bronchitis for the last few days so the antibiotics have had time to kick in. Also, there would have been some time that a couple of the immunizations wouldn’t have been at peak protection. I’ve also been using my time to freshen up my emergency medicine skills and to learn everything possible about survival in an urban crisis situation. I’m truly approaching this from a worst case scenario. Anything less than that will make my day.

I have reached the point where the initial rush of fear about the horrible conditions on the ground have been replaced by an urgent desire to actually get there. My bosses have already spent a large amount of money just getting me ready to go. The shots alone were $300 and I won’t get into how much it costs to rent a mobile up-link for the satellite.  As this stretches out I may find myself at a point where all this preparation will be for nothing. Eventually they will have to pull the plug on the venture. Ultimately as long as I can convince the team to take me along I will go to Haiti. I would prefer to have the equipment and the ability to disseminate my work to an audience but I will shoot for myself and do the volunteer work as an individual if it comes to that.

I’ll be updating the blog and Facebook for anybody interested in following the trip as it unfolds. I’ll include all the links when I get more information.

I’m getting set for a trip to Haiti. Like most things that turn into huge projects it started simply enough. Chronicle reporter Cindy Leise did a story on  Church on the Northcoast and their efforts to go to Haiti to offer help to the victims of the 7.0 earthquake. It’s a natural thing for a photographer to say “hey, I want to go too.”

I started making calls and getting the information together on the cost to travel as well as the equipment I would need to get images back from the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Our managing editor liked the idea of following a local group of people who are simply throwing themselves headlong into the chaos that is Haiti. We met with our big boss Andy Young and after making promises that I wouldn’t get killed and that we have a valid reason for going the deal was done.

I made arrangements for some pretty cool gear, a satellite phone that will work anywhere in the world and a marsat unit that transmits my images and stories to a satellite. I also had to contact the Elyria City Health Department for a series of shots and medications. Whooping cough, Typhoid, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, as well as meds for Malaria. They also included some pretty serious information about Dengue fever. Apparently this little thing is transferred by mosquitoes and can cause hemorrhagic bleeding… uhh yea, that’s not good. 

I’ve been asked the same question more than once, why am I going?

The answer is pretty simple. I am a journalist. It’s who I am and what I do, having an opportunity to do my part to report on an international news event is too much to pass up. Having the chance to follow Lorain County people into the hell that is Haiti makes it even better. I will record, report, and photograph their activities as they arrive in Haiti with nothing but money to start their mission. Traveling with medical personnel the group will likely begin treating people within hours of boots on the ground. Their hope as well as mine is to hookup with a group for logistical support when we arrive in Port au Prince.

I’ll be doing my best to update the blog during the trip and will be providing daily stories and photos on Chroniclet.com

If you have been thinking about a new camera Canon has just announced a new mid-range camera. The Canon 7D should be available by the end of September and will hit the streets with an msrp of $1699. That’s a great price for something that packs an 18mp sensor, full HD video recording, an updated chip set and an updated body construction.

I have used most of the Canon’s from the Mark II all the way to the 20D and I have been happy with everything but the 5D. For some reason that camera just never matched up with the output of the other Canon’s. I don’t know, I’m still trying to decide if I just happen to have a dog. Nearly everybody shares their love for that camera.

Right now I’m doing daily photojournalism with the 50D and the camera is outstanding. I do have to be very careful with it because the weather resistance is almost zero. I had a couple of sprinkles hit the camera and it caused problems for two days before things were back to normal.

The 7D boasts increased weather resistance that is reported to be even better than what the $2600 5D Mark II has to offer.

Check out the press release from Canon.

I can’t let the Daniel Petric verdict go by without adding one more blog to the clamoring din. I don’t want to get into why the judge thinks video games shrink your brain stem or lead to violence. We won’t even be able to try and get a comment from him about that until the case is settled.

What I do want to say is that I, as a gamer and as a parent to three teen gamers, have a few real-life examples of where he might be a little right but a whole lot wrong.

Opinions are one thing but numbers are what really matter. Here are the numbers for the top three game consoles sold in the United States. 21,508,000 Xbox 360s, Playstation 3s, and Wiis have been setup in homes all over the U.S. These numbers were provided by the NPD, an independent auditing group. The numbers are from February 2008, so there are even more of these potential murderer creators out there in the wild.

Danny Petric of Brighton Township, Ohi,o has tried to blame his Xbox as the reason for planning and executing the murder of his mother and father. Things didn’t work out as planned. He did shoot and kill his mother but his father lived. Petric shot his father, a minister, in the head and tried to place the gun in his hand to make it look like a murder-suicide.

It feels nuts to have to sit here and write that video games don’t make people kill. We aren’t even talking about the content. The judge honestly believes that the act of playing the game causes physical changes to the brain that mimic cocaine ingestion.

Do people get hooked on gaming? No doubt.

Anything that is the least bit pleasing will attract a segment of people who will abuse it. Late at night when nobody is looking, take a peek at the parts of the Internet you don’t normally go to. There are examples of all sorts of things people get hooked on that don’t make any sense at all. Becoming overly involved in something doesn’t make you ripe for executing the people who gave you life and raised you from birth.

I have purchased three of those 21 million units sold and my kids love their games. They whine when you want them to get off to do some house work, and they gripe when you say “The suns out, get outside and have a life.” My kids do commit the occasional petty theft as they steal batteries out of their brother’s controller when their batteries go dead. At this point, I still feel like I can safely sleep without having to lock the door.

I don’t know Danny Petric, I only watched him sitting in court with a slightly vacant look on his face day after day. I feel sympathy for his family and I respect them for their unrestrained love and support of Danny. I would be wrong if I didn’t admit that I see them as being somewhat delusional, also. They don’t seem to expect any form of punishment for Danny. They only want him to come home so they can begin healing.

That’s not the way it works in America.

When it comes right down to it, it’s my personal feeling that yes, Danny Petric has some kind of problem. Who kills his mom and tries to kill his father and doesn’t have a problem? I just think murdering your mother and maiming you dad requires a real punishment. Trying to blame it on a video game console is a clever but shameful ploy to avoid taking responsibility.

One of my gamers, Jake – who is only a few months younger than Daniel — posted a comment on The Chronicle video of the verdict that summed this all up pretty well.

“This is ridiculous. The kid is insane yes, but was it caused by video games? No. Anyone who thinks that video games cause violent behavior is wrong. Upbringing, mental illness, and stupidity cause violent behavior.” Squireyoung

I would hate to be the reporter or the editors working for a certain paper just north of The Chronicle.

That paper learned a valuable lesson about quoting random people in their stories. Sure they sold a few more papers Sunday by claiming that Midway Mall was closing, but at what cost? If you can’t believe what you read then why buy the paper?

I realize a lot of people don’t have the greatest amount of faith in the media and to a certain extent I don’t blame them. Although local reporters are a far different breed than the guys from the Fox Network, readers tend to paint them all with the same brush. And then there are so many outlets go with the easy story in the belief that people won’t know the difference.

Do we make mistakes? You bet we do. The mistakes made around here are the product of young reporters and the pressures of working under deadlines, and I’m darn sure that’s what happened to the reporter up north. But I can promise you that what you will never see here is a front page story under a banner headline that doesn’t have any of the key players commenting. Honestly, what would it have mattered to have held that story for a day to get the officials needed to confirm what random workers and shoppers at the mall were saying?

Around here, we put a pretty steep price on our credibility. When a reporter makes a mistake, they pay the price. Unfortunately, more than one person has gone on to a new career by making one too many mistakes in stories they wrote for The Chronicle.

With papers closing and readers turning to other sources, it’s time for editors to step up and avoid taking the easy route to a scoop. If you try to slip one through, you may find your headline splashed over tens of thousands of TV sets and your paper one step closer to insignificance.

I remember taking my stepson Jake to the midnight release of Halo 3. In a moment of parental weakness, I let him skip school the next day so he could go online and play. He was an A + student, but I know it was wrong. Jake waited for over a year for the game to come out. He knew everything about the game and monitored every twist and turn in the development of the game. He is a good student and has never shown any violent tendencies.

This brings us to Daniel Petric. Jake and Daniel are nearly identical in their fervor for the video game and their desire to spend every moment playing Xbox. What makes the two boys different is that this morning Daniel went into court today to face charges that he murdered his mother and shot his father in the head. The fact that he shot his parents is not in dispute because Petric confessed to the crime, and the prosecution and defense both said he did it.

The reason why and if it was a planned crime seems to be the only thing the defense has to work with.

During his opening statements, Daniel’s attorney, James Kersey said that while Daniel was laid up with a staph infection his parents bought him an Xbox 360. That led to him becoming “immersed and somewhat addicted to video games.” Kersey also told the judge that Daniel had played Halo 1, Halo 2 and had been waiting a year and a half for the release of Halo 3. Kersey said that Daniel would play the games 24/7 when he was with his friends.

The problem seems to be that the rating for Halo 3 is mature. His parents objected to him playing the game because of the rating, the violence and some sexual content in the game. For Daniel, Halo 3 looked like a no go.

At some point in this whole sad tale, Daniel snuck out of the house by slipping out of his bedroom window. He made it to the store where he got the game and was caught by his mom when he tried to get back into the house. The game was taken and locked in a lockbox, the very same lockbox that held the gun Daniel used to kill his mother and critically wound his father.

It’s not hard to find reports on the web about the relationship of video games and violent crime. A Fresno State student murdered over a Playstation, a grandfather kicked to the floor and left there for five days without food or heart medication. He died. His grandson was upset because he couldn’t get money for a video game. The other popular story is the kid or young adult who goes on a video game like crime spree and blames it on the game. I don’t know that any of this is really about games or game consoles. Before gaming people were killed for bicycles, tennis shoes, and even comic books. People have — and still do — blame their crimes on movies and television.

The addiction issue is probably going to play into this case as well. As far back as June 22, 2007, a few months before the murder, there was a story on MSNBC’s website detailing the American Medical Association’s efforts to get video game addiction recognized as a psychiatric disorder. I know my three sons don’t mind burying themselves in their Xbox and we have had our share of family disturbances over how much time is spent playing games. Truth be told, I am one of those video gamer geeks myself so I feel qualified to weigh in on this.

What is the difference between kids who want to play a game so bad that they argue with their parents and do everything they can to play a little bit longer, and a kid who shoots his parents in the head? Until Daniel said “Close your eyes, I have a surprise for you” and opened fire, his parents never knew they were in danger.

As a gamer, I hope the defense attorney doesn’t take this Xbox defense and try to turn gaming into a justification for murder. It won’t work and it is wrong to try and justify the death and maiming of innocent people.

I always want people to comment when I post a blog. But after the first couple of replies to my contest, I realized I had a problem.

How do you choose one person’s cause over another? Who is more worthy?

Well as it turns out, I don’t have to make that choice this year. So here’s how we are going to do it.

For a combination of reasons, I am making a $400 donation to The Ronald McDonald House. One of those reasons is Jim Onderko, a name you may have seen here on the blog once or twice. He comments a lot and he is a good friend. He and his wife suffered an unimaginable tragedy that still makes me want to cry when I think about it. The second contributing factor involves my son Dylan. When my now teen-aged son was born, we spent a few days looking at our newborn son, fearing that he would need heart surgery. It turned out that his little body was just fine, but it taught me what real fear is.

The good news is that I have an additional $400 courtesy of an unnamed fellow employee. Rona and Dan are also good folks and they both agree that a donation to the foodbanks is a great way to spend the money. So, I am making a $200 donation to the Lorain Salvation Army Foodbank for Rona (I really wanted to make it Elyria, but Rona is the Queen of Lorain). The other $200 will go to the Elyria Salvation Army Foodbank for Dan. The Salvation Army does a great job each year stretching everything they get to make the holidays special. They are fighting an uphill battle, so it’s great to help them out a little bit.