Voices: At vigil for slain cops, NYC at its most united
As a journalist, you try to be dispassionate. Get both sides of a story, avoid undue emotion and convey an accurate picture to the reader. As part of that process, it's common to become jaded and cynical. "Here we go again," you think as you head to another assignment.
Sometimes, though, that shell — built up over years of press conferences, protests and other media events — takes a hard knock. Such as on Sunday evening at a vigil for Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, two New York City police officers who were killed execution-style as they sat in their patrol car near a housing project on Saturday afternoon.
It starts on an ordinary Brooklyn street corner, where stands an ordinary red brick wall forming the back of a pizza store. But that is all that is ordinary.
On the sidewalk in front of the wall, is the place where the blood of two men had flowed barely 24 hours before. And now it is the backdrop for candles, flowers, handwritten messages and the other outpourings that such "makeshift memorials" attract.
In front of it stands a crowd of about 100 people that could be a Benetton ad depicting New York City. And there are dozens of journalists, chiefly from television, there both to do serious reporting and to capture the camera-friendly scene of bright candles and colorful flowers against a backdrop of grief.
Then there are the police, come to mourn two of their own. Like journalists, police often accrue a seen-it-all, world-weary visage. There is none of that here. Shock is plainly evident, especially among the younger officers. An "it-could-have-been-me" look is on the faces of many.
It is quiet, broken only by quiet chatter as neighbor meets neighbor and as police officers meet up with colleagues to discuss the tragedy that has hit their ranks.
Until about 20 minutes in, that is, when a group of about 50 people, from the nearby New Testament Church arrive singing "I'm Going to Let it Shine." Dressed in Sunday-church finery, their breath shooting from their mouths in the near-freezing temperatures, they are there to express sadness and solidarity after the tragedy that happened in their midst.
Then they move towards the red brick wall to pay their respects. Silently they pray for the men charged with protecting them. For a few minutes, the crowd follows their example, bringing a quiet broken only by the sound of generators fueling the bright lights of the TV satellite trucks.
And then they walk away and assemble again, breaking into song once again. "Make This World a Better Place," they demand, sung in call-and-response style, And, finally, a fervent version of "Silent Night," a nod to the Christmas the two dead men will not see.
With events such as those that occurred on Saturday and the raw emotions on display on Sunday — and the solidarity and concern of decent people at the deaths of two young men charged with protecting the community — it is hard for that tough journalist's shell not to soften a little.
Diebel, a resident of New York City, is Senior Headlines Editor for Paste BN