In 2010, I received a phone call from a reporter (from England), who was doing a story about a "night in the life" of a Detroit city cop. I was getting paid to do complementary photos that would go along with the story, and being lean at the time, I needed the money, so I said yes.
The reporter was supposed to be here to report about the North American International Auto Show, but his editors wanted some secondary material that would focus on the "underbelly" of Detroit. At the time, there was an excessive amount of media reports that highlighted Detroit's demise, so this article, would fit neatly into the cookie-cutter post industrial ruins story that was circulating at the time. I hated those stories, and now here I was as an active participant.
Over the years, I've had similar requests that involved scouting "ruin porn" for film crews and the like, and every time I do, I end up feeling compromised. Over time, I've learned to politely decline.
Back to the story… For two hours, I drove around the city's upper West side looking for a spectacle to photograph. In the squad car was myself, the reporter, and two police officers. One cop had to sit in the back seat with the reporter, because I insisted of being up front to photograph the cop who was driving the cop-car. The guy driving, whose name I can't remember, was a loosely put together ruffian, who went by the nickname, "Mental." He ended up being our tour guide, as we poached for crimes yet to be committed.
At midnight, we finally received a call over the radio, about a stabbing related to a family dispute. As we drove up to the house, "Mental" told us to wait outside, while they went in. What the hell? I had patiently sat in this squad car listening to tall tales of life in the Detroit Police Department, and now I had to sit on the front lawn and wait? I wanted to get inside and photograph God damn it!
The reporter had different ideas. Turns out, he wasn't much of an investigative reporter. He immediately made a beeline for the bushes in front of the house, and hid from any possible harm that might be inflicted upon himself. I thought this was odd, seeing as how we had a posse of Detroit Police who had arrived on the scene with guns ready.
I have deep respect and admiration for seasoned investigative reporters with feet on the ground. As a street photographer, we frequently cross paths, but this reporter, for whatever reason, had made the wrong career decision. He was a trembling chicken-shit, clearly out of his element. I was in my element, but was being denied access. So I waited.
Waiting outside, I heard the chaos of what I was missing, and then suddenly, "Mental" peeked his head out the front door, and nonchalantly said, "You want to see the show?" I walked into the house, followed by the peaked reporter, who apprehensively followed me through the front door.
What was called in as a "stabbing," ended up being a slight laceration that a brother had inflicted on the leg of his sister after a family argument.
I never ended up following the story to its end. I'm sure it exists somewhere online, but ultimately I wasn't that interested, because it wasn't much of a story after all…at least not a story that needed to be shared outside of a troubled family dealing with a crisis. At the time, my guilt in participating was clouded by my need to get paid, but I still felt weird about it, and hoped that nobody from Detroit would read the finished piece, seeing as how I was complicit in it's creation.
In the end, what stuck with me, was the photograph I had taken of "Mental's" locker inside the police station after we got back. Here it is.
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