Saturday, June 23, 2018

Andy's Angles: Freeland Homicide

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.