Redlights and Redeyes

A high school cheerleader was shot and killed last night after a football game in Bradenton.  Bayshore High School student Jazmine Thompson was riding in the backseat of a car with a group of girlfriends on their way to a friend’s house.  The details are still coming out, but police say that they were approached by a young man, and after a brief conversation, something snapped and he started firing away – striking her in the head.  The girls drove the car and Jazmine five blocks home realizing she was dead when they arrived, which is where I ended up this morning.  I was at another assignment when we got wind of what had happened and I had to drive an hour north from where I was to get to the house.  I wasn’t sure if anything was going to be there to photograph, but when I made the turn onto the street, there were cars down the block and a group of students gathered in the yard.  Most were wearing cheerleader outfits, powder puff jerseys, or school colors.  Yellow and blue.  About as bright as it gets.

As you can tell, the color is missing here.  High school cheerleaders are known for their smiles, makeup, and unrelenting energy.  I didn’t get any of that.  This was real.  Very quiet, very surreal scene.  There wasn’t another member of the media in sight, except our reporter, Halle, who tipped me off.  I pulled up, grabbed a camera and began that really nervous (I’m not sure if I’m welcome here) walk.  After introducing myself to the first person who came up to me, I was guided into the middle of 30 + students and cheerleaders.  I made some eye contact with some of the girls, mouthed, “Is it ok?”  Eye contact can say more than anything.  A simple nod was given.  I raised my camera and made a couple select frames.  Twenty clicks at most.

Once I felt I had made some photos that were usable, I left the families and friends to grieve.

A megaphone with her name on it sat on the ground.  Silenced.

I had the same sort of emotions running through my mind as I did when I covered the death of Dejuan Williams, exactly a month ago.  He was also a student at Bayshore.  Both deaths were needless.  What isn’t needless is our job to cover these stories and to get people upset about this – people should be.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2009 at 9:55 pm and is filed under photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.