Often when he gets off his shift in the early morning, he goes home and drinks a six-pack of Corona, or he’ll head to a bar for something stronger, something to counteract the adrenaline, to dull the agitation.
10:03 a.m. (Spotnews tweets) “They fuck up, they get beat. We fuck up, they give us pensions.”–Ellis Carver. #TheWire
10:36 a.m. spotnews “Count be wrong, they fuck you up.” #season1
Pete has a thing for The Wire, and he and others exchange lines from the TV series. He feels it’s true to what he sees. It’s a touchstone and, with some irony, kind of evidence to others that what he’s telling them is real. There’s constant chatter on Twitter, between those at home listening to police scanners (there are more than you might expect) and Pete. He also has exchanges with a cadre of freelance videographers and photographers who sprint from one crime scene to the next, selling their footage and photos to the local news stations. They often meet at an all-night diner, Huck Finn, where they take the corner booth and set up their computers and scanners. Pete admires the video guys, but it irks him that many of them wear flak jackets and make no effort to hide them. One wears a military-grade vest which has an extension to cover his privates. Pete refuses to wear one. “It’s disrespectful,” he says, “like saying, I don’t feel safe here.”
9:21 p.m. Spotnews PeterNickeas 2 early for Peter & Huck Finn
9:25 p.m. Too early indeed. I’m just settling in here at the tower.
9:49 p.m. Tonight is starting to feel like the night where I throw this fucking computer from the fourth floor window of the tower
SATURDAY, JUNE 15
12:09 a.m. 5500 W. Quincy. 2 people shot. #chicago [accompanied by a short video of a man who can’t get to his home because of the police tape]
12:45 a.m. Two people shot a couple blocks from this scene we were at. Ambos not here yet.
Pete learns a lesson here. He gets to the scene before the medic and stumbles on a man bleeding from his neck, gurgling, trying to ask for help. He doesn’t know what to do. He feels useless. And he can’t get the sound out of his head, the desperation, the inability to make the simplest of requests: Help me. From then on Pete makes a point of arriving at a scene after the ambulances. There’s something to be said for being the second one on the scene.
2:36 a.m. At least 9 shot since Friday afternoon. Total does not reflect a recent shooting on Central Avenue, for which we lack details. #chicago
3:52 a.m. Guy calls 911, asking for a supervisor: “Said he was stopped by a unit, made to exit his vehicle, then he took it.” #chicagoscanner
5:02 a.m. A man walked into Stroger Hospital this morning with a gunshot wound. He wouldn’t tell police where he had been shot. #chicago
6:13 a.m. Did a guy just get shot at 76th/Ashland? I think so. #chicago
7:05 a.m. It’s glass-of-whiskey time, once I get my shit done here, which I’m struggling to do.
He and the photographer who’s ridden shotgun all night go to the Billy Goat Tavern, a watering hole for generations of reporters, from Mike Royko to Studs Terkel. There he orders a Jameson, straight up. This was an unusually difficult shift, and though he doesn’t know it yet, it will change him. In the early-morning hours he had heard a call over the scanner about someone shot, and when he arrived at the scene, he began shooting a video on his phone. A young shirtless man approached him, clearly high and drunk, a blunt tucked behind one ear, wanting to know if his friend was alive or dead. Pete makes it a point not to engage with people who are inebriated, and so he tried to avoid him, which only further irritated the man. Go back to your neighborhood! he bellowed. You’re not from around here! He started jogging back to his house, yelling at his girlfriend, who stood on the front porch, Get my gun. The young man entered his house and emerged with his hand behind his back. Pete told the photographer, Junior, we need to get the fuck out of here. They jumped into their separate cars. The man ran in front of Pete’s car, his hands nearly touching the hood. Pete veered around him and peeled off, running a red light. He didn’t look back to see if