Murder-suicide brings home job's stark reality

PENNSAUKEN, N.J. — We're not supposed to be this close to the story.

Not journalists in my role: We are editors, desk jockeys, the ones who get the copy from the reporters who are on the scene and turn it into something for the website and later, the print newspaper.

We stay warm, safe and dry.

But not Tuesday.

An ordinary lunch outing — a farewell lunch for a colleague — turned into a refresher on breaking news for those of us more familiar with aftermath than immediacy.

As we chatted and joked and waited for our meals at Tortilla Press Cantina in Pennsauken, N.J., one of our senior editors noticed some police officers across the street and mentioned it to our chief photographer. He went outside, snapped a couple of photos, then came back inside and said quietly to me, "Is there a writer available? Something's happening outside; there's a bunch of cops with guns drawn out there."

"Uh, I'm a writer," I half-jokingly replied. I grabbed a notebook, a pen and my phone and joined the photographer and our digital editor outside. We started doing what journalists do: taking photos, jotting notes, tweeting and texting the office to let them know something was happening — even if we didn't know yet what it was.

There were police, a lot of them. They were armed and some were in tactical positions. Then one of them came over and calmly but firmly told us to get inside. Now.

Shots had been fired and they did not know by whom.

We got inside.

Other staffers — most of whom, like me, work in the office — began tweeting, snapping photos with their phones and texting. One of our digital producers got in touch with the Courier-Post online desk and fed information as we heard it: Five shots fired. No word on injuries. Maple Avenue closed to traffic. Police telling the few people outside in a thunderstorm to get inside.

We stood at our best vantage point, the front windows of the restaurant, trying to discern what we could from across the street as the rain fell and thunder (we hoped) cracked outside.

Then something happened that switched off the journalist in me and switched on the person: A police officer came into the restaurant, gun drawn, and told us all to get away from the windows. More shots might be fired. A SWAT team was en route.

I have a daughter. A husband. A mom. And all the professional journalists — the people who were with me — they have loved ones, too. The news rush became something much more raw: fear.

We got away from the windows and moved to the back of the dining room.

And marveled at the officer — the one who'd just warned us of imminent danger — stationing himself right there, squarely in that big front window.

When it was all over, we went back to our lunch, shaken but safe, each and every one of us. We went back to the office. Wrote. Got photos and video online. Our jangled nerves would settle.

But the news, our business, was suddenly less abstract. Two people were dead; the tragedy that unfolded would devastate at least two families.

For them, the day's news would be shatteringly real.