This isn't one of my photos. It's a screen grab from some video WNEP photographer Jason Wolf recorded Monday morning.
A young man was shot and killed Monday morning in Freeland. According to police, it was a botched drug deal. The victim allegedly tried passing off drywall shavings and baking soda as cocaine. The suspect is the alleged customer who got ripped off.
You really can't get a good look at it here, and that's a good thing, but there's blood on the street.
Any time I cover street violence, my mind goes back to a morning in Williamsport several years ago. A man was shot. He died on the pavement. The pool of blood was still there, hours later. Police called a fire truck. The firefighters poured some disinfectant on the blood pool, turned on the hose, and washed the blood into the storm sewer. I can still see the oddly colored fluid traveling down the curb and in to the grate. All I can think of was "what a waste of a human life."
No fire truck during my stay in Freeland Monday morning, but the all too familiar feeling was there. A teenager lost his life. Another one is looking at decades in prison.
What a waste.