NYC Shooting story

       Five people are now dead after one of New York City’s most gruesome car chases took place as a detective pursued a supposed hit man.

      According to police records and witness accounts, gunshots first broke out late Saturday afternoon. All seemed calm when Detective Jimmy Popeye Doyle was walking home along 52^nd Avenue by Franklin Park before the first shot was fired. The shot, which according to police was aimed at Doyle, happened to hit a woman close by instead.

      The shot killed the young mother, Betty Badluck, as she was bundled up on the cold day and pushing her infant in it’s stroller. Doyle sprung into action and lunged behind a nearby tree as he drew his gun and shouted for passersby to flee the scene. Badluck laid dead as her baby rolled away in it’s carriage, it’s cries filling the air.

      It didn’t take long for the sniper, Pierre Nicoli, to continue shooting from a nearby rooftop, firing five shots in total. Doyle ran along the side of the building before hopping the handrail of the stairs and rushing inside.

      Once on the open rooftop, Doyle realized he was alone and that Nicoli had escaped. Seeing him on the ground, the detective set out in pursuit of the hit man and began to chase him on foot.

Nicoli led Doyle towards the Elevated Lift on 52^nd where he quickly boarded a train, leaving the detective behind. Doyle left the station and began flagging down passing cars before finally getting one to stop. Kicking out the driver and stealing the car, Doyle went after Nicoli from below.

      Meanwhile, the hit man was on the train trying his best to act natural, according to witnesses. It didn’t take long for him to panic though and to begin moving from cart to cart, which quickly caught the attention of police officer, Sonny Grosso.

      Grosso then began to go after Nicoli who got stuck at a door that wouldn’t open. According to witnesses, Nicoli wasted no time in pulling out his gun and shooting down the officer who died at the scene. Panic set in throughout the train and chaos ensued.

      The hit man then made his way into the front of the train and pulled his gun on Captain Peter Howe. At this point, Doyle had made it to the next train station and was waiting there in an attempt to stop Nicoli. Nicoli threatened Howe though and forced him to fly by the station without stopping.

      Doyle returned to the stolen vehicle and continued to follow the train by car. Back on the train however, Howe suffered a heart attack and died in the cockpit. The sniper wasn’t done there though and ended up taking the life of Sam Clemens, another police officer, as well.

      Once the train reached 35^th Street station, Nicoli finally departed the train and was confronted by Doyle. Upon seeing the detective, Nicoli turned to run and was shot in the back causing him to fall to the bottom of the stairs, which Doyle had shot him from.

      According to witness Adam Vanier, Nicoli staggered before falling and once he reached his final resting spot at the bottom of the stairs, Doyle slumped down next to him. Needless to say, the people surrounding the scene began to panic.

      “I’ve never seen someone get shot before and I didn’t know the situation at the time so it was kind of scary,” said Vanier. He then went on to explain that the people didn’t know what to do next as Doyle sat there with the gun.

      “You automatically assume the shooter is the bad guy,” Vanier said. He couldn’t be more wrong though seeing as Nicoli had been sent to kill Doyle. Fortunately he didn’t succeed, although the four innocent lives he did take will always be remembered. 

I'm Not Out To Get You! Please Understand That

One of the most annoying things that I've found about writing for TNH is that people are afraid of the media. They hear that I work for TNH and instantly think that I'm out to get them or make them look bad. Honestly, I'm not, so please calm down.

Of course this doesn't happen all too often, but when it does it frustrates me. When I had to call the police for the fake snowball fight mentioned in the blog post below, they were not all too willing to talk to me. They wouldn't even let me explain what I was calling about. The second I said that I was writing an article for TNH, one dispatcher interrupted me. "We don't talk to TNH!" she blurted out. I tried to explain, but she kept cutting me off before rudely hanging up. I only wanted to ask if they had records going back to the 70s. It was a simple yes or no question.

Another police station I called let me explain the situation, but said that there was an older woman I could talk to who would remember, but that she wasn't currently available. They gave me her name and I called back the next day. I asked for her and when she answered she quickly freaked out when she heard the word TNH. She began stammering that she couldn't talk to the media. She said she wasn't allowed to or she'd get in trouble. I asked her to please listen for a moment, but she just repeated that she couldn't talk to me. She then quickly transferred me to a police officer. It was really annoying to have to deal with.

When I called the first police station again, the dispatcher just transferred me to a police officer who she said could answer my question. The voicemail of Paul Dean picked up, who I and many other people know is out for a surgery and he has been for a little bit now. The dispatcher just transferred me to him because she knew he wasn't available. At that point I was getting angry and wished that someone would give me a second to explain myself.

I've learned from this that not everyone is going to be patient and understanding. I have to mention that I'm with the paper though, so it's hard to get them to listen sometimes. In the future though I might wait a bit longer to mention it, but at the same time that makes it seem like I'm trying to fool them. It's a hard situation and I guess I'll have to ask someone what to do before it happens again.

When a Really Cool, Awesome Story Turns Out To Just Be a Complete and Total Lie

A few weeks ago I was assigned a story for TNH about a massive snowball fight that occurred in the 70s at UNH. Apparently the National Guard was called in and it was a really big deal. I was given the name of the former student who had given us the lead and I arranged to meet with him. We met on campus and I was instantly thrown by his appearance. He seemed to be some sort of old hippie, which is fine, but it surprised. So, we got to talking and he told me all about the snowball, saying that it started at Stoke and eventually spread to the rest of campus. He told me how the frats started throwing ice balls and that that's when things got bad. He said that windows were getting broken and people were getting hurt. He started getting very dramatic and I began to wonder if he was over exaggerating about some things. He said that the damages totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars. As if this wasn't enough of a clue that the story wasn't completely factual, the guy couldn't even remember what year this alleged snowball fight happened in. He said it was sometime between 1972 and 74.

So, I had all of my notes from the guy but I knew that I needed some sort of verification that it was true. I went to the library and had to go through a lot of trouble to access the TNH archives from the 70s. The librarians started by telling me that they had never heard of the snowball and that they had been around in the 70s. I asked for the archives anyways and after about 45 minutes of looking through the years that he had mentioned, I had nothing. I relayed this to my editor who then spent almost an hour himself searching through the archives of Foster's Daily Democrat. He also found nothing.

At this point I was starting to get frustrated and was worried that the guy just made everything up. After about six calls to a couple different police stations, I found out that they didn't have records going back that far and they couldn't verify if the story was real. I talked to people in each station that had been there since the 70s and none of them remembered it happening. My editor then suggested that I call a class president from one of those years so I chose 1973 since it was in the middle and he had most likely been around for all three of the years that the guy had mentioned. After a few attempts to contact the class president, I was finally able to ask him if it was true. His response was simple. It never happened. He told me that he had personally been involved in many snowball fights on campus, but none of them ever caused extreme damages or had police involvement.

Overall, I was pretty upset. For one, I had already told all my friends and family this super awesome story. And second, I was lied to. This guy completely lied right to my face for no apparent reason. I'm not sure why he did it and what he got out of that, but it really annoys me. My editor suggested that I write him an email letting him know that I wasn't pleased, but I think I'd rather just avoid the conflict and let it go. It taught me the importance of getting a secondary source though. I would have hated to have written that story without double checking it first and realizing after it was published that it had been made up. So, even though I'm upset by this, I'm happy that I've at least walked away with a valuable lesson.