We are always grateful when one of our readers submits photos or video of a newsworthy event. There’s no substitute for eyewitness documentation as events happen. Or, as the adage goes, if you see something, say something.
A prime example of the value of eyewitnesses to news events happened in Minneapolis last Wednesday, when Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE agent. Federal officials, including the president, vice president, and the director of Homeland Security, characterized the event as an act of domestic terrorism and justified her killing by claiming that the woman was attempting to run down the agent with her SUV.
Video footage shot by several eyewitnesses tells a completely different story.
It shows that the agent was not in the path of the SUV yet shot the driver multiple times. Nor was the driver using her vehicle as a weapon or aiming at the agent. While the official account claims the agent was struck by the SUV, two of the three shots were fired into the side of the vehicle, and the video shows him walking around after he fired his gun. The SUV crashed, and the woman, a poet characterized by a Fox News employee as someone who had a lesbian partner and used “pronouns in her bio” (as if those were mitigating factors), was dead.
Multiple disinterested parties are far less likely than involved parties to lie or collude to alter facts. With the endless flow of misinformation, propaganda, and outright lies from the Trump administration, we cannot take any of their statements as accurate or factual and must rely on eyewitness accounts to determine the true parameters of the situation.
Almost everyone has access to the same professional equipment we use in our reporting—eyes and ears and a mobile phone with a camera. When you are present for a newsworthy event, consider taking video or photos of what you see. Use the notes app on your phone to capture important details such as when and where, and most importantly, who is involved. Why and how are usually questions to be answered afterwards, when there are more details and context to consider. But when it is appropriate to ask questions of someone who is present and qualified to answer them, please record that as well.
We may not be able to use everything you send us for a variety of reasons— we might not get permission from those involved to share, we could receive other coverage that is clearer or more comprehensive, or it may be a story we do not cover. But even if we don’t publish your reporting directly, the information you share with us is always valuable, and can be used as a starting point for further investigation.
If you are an eyewitness to a significant event, document it and send it to the Post!
Adam Gillitt is the Publisher of the Alameda Post. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Adam-Gillitt.
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