People are crazy

So I am getting my early morning Regis and Kelly fix ( I love that Kelly Ripa.. she's just so funny!) and they break into programming with news of a shooting downtown.. So, being the news whore that I am, I immediately flip to my own channel where we are only on a static shot of the city, but with what I believe to be the most journalistically ethical reporting, not reporting the names of anyone killed until they are confirmed.. but jeez.. could we not get a camera in there quicker! One of our crews actually witnessed one of the shootings, but with no live truck. Sadly, the bastard wrestled a gun away from a deputy and shot and killed the judge, his court reporter and another deputy, shot yet another deputy and carjacked like 4 different vehicles. The city is in complete chaos looking for this guy.. He was apparently on trial for kidnapping and raping his ex-fiancee and then was involved in some sort of chase, he was on trial for that last week but the jury was hung.. according to a witness, he had tried to smuggle in a "shank" or homemade knife into the court last week.. why they weren't watching him a little better is beyond me. I feel bad for our crew that was there.. we have all seen really horrific things in our years in the news, but if you have never seen someone actually die right in front of you, well that's something that stays with you forever. trust me.. I still can see the eyes of the man that died as I was comforting him after a traffic accident.. you don't ever forget it. So now they are looking for this guy all over the city.. they know who he is, but they haven't found him yet.. dead man walking is what my mother-out-law called him.. and I have to say she is probably right. I guess he didn't really have anything to lose.. he was probably going away for a long time... but why the deputy didn't have the special holsters that are available where only the wearer can take the gun out. Someone needs to ask that question. I called the attorney's office and warned them that the courthouse was in lockdown and to stay put.. Hopefully none of them were down there for this.. It's a sad day in the city of Atlanta.. It is one of those days that makes me sad to work in news, though most days news isn't really that great to begin with.. but today it's overall just sucky.. In switching back and forth between stations though I have to say that our competitors kind of shocked me when 2 of the other news stations outright called the judge by name and said that he was dead, in addition to his court reporter and this was all well before anything had been confirmed.... how would they feel if they were driving down the road or watching tv and had someone blurt out that their husband, father, brother had just been killed.. It is to me ethically wrong. and I am glad that we have at least taken a stand and won't report anything like that without confirmation from police. I just think that in the race to be first.. to have the breaking news first, we (and by we I mean the media in general) lose sight of the fact that we are reporting on human beings.. and that those people have people in their lives that love them, and they deserve better than to hear it on the news. So, kudos to whoever is in charge at our place that made that rule and enforces it. it's a good human rule... in a career where a lot of times it's not fun.. it's at least nice to be able to say that we try to be sensitive to that fact. I finally got to watch the doctor phil from the other day with the follow up on the kid whose family thought he was a sexual predator.. scary stuff.. I watched the original 2 parter a few weeks ago, it was difficult to watch, but this kid I think had convinced himself that he wasn't doing anything inappropriate.. but ultimately he was found to have been not truthful and they sent him to treatment. but hopefully they can help this kid.. hopefully he won't end up as a news story somewhere down the line. My thoughts go out to the family of those people killed in Atlanta today..........rest in peace y'all..