Jay on Saddlebrook

There is an old woman sitting near the caution tape. She was screaming earlier, yelling when police drug her away from her home. That’s what a witness told me. She is surrounded by a group that I visited as soon as I pulled up on Saddlebrook Lane in southwest Louisville. They were closest to the scene so I walked over and asked if they might know anything. If they saw anybody run by or heard any shots. A tall man turned to me and told me they have nothing to say. I studied his eyes; there was no use arguing. “Fair enough,” I mumbled, and left them to search for anyone who might be willing to talk to me. That was before I knew this woman was screaming.

A woman, over here. She was screaming, “Oh my God, Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. Oh my God.”

The media is huddled on the far side of the parking lot. We all possess the same minimal story: one man shot dead here tonight, another in critical condition and two others wounded. I look over the groups of neighbors and family huddled outside. They have nowhere to go, they are simply waiting on this late September night and we are waiting on them. I study the woman who was screaming earlier from across the parking lot. If she was screaming, she must know something. If she was screaming she must not want to talk.

Homicides scenes are far more tedious than many would anticipate. Usually, by the time the media arrives everyone who saw anything or was touched by the tragedy is long gone or too scared to talk. You’re left with a hodgepodge of neighbors who only heard gunshots and a handful of gawkers out to take in the destruction and who are fueled by rumors. Some so-called witnesses actually saw nothing. Once a man told me he saw EMTs throw sheets over two lifeless bodies and load them into ambulances. Although two men were shot that day, neither died from their wounds. Following another shooting, a group of children who arrived after I did were the only individuals huddled around the scene. Each one traded imagined tales of how this particular victim was blown out of his shoes.

I walk across the parking lot further down Saddlebrook Lane, a small street that winds around brick apartment buildings. A spokesman from the police department stands in front of a crescent of news cameras and I join on the end to listen to the sanctioned story of what occurred here tonight.

A little after 10 p.m. this evening, Louisville Metro Police received a call of a shooting in the 4900 block of Saddlebrook Lane. Our preliminary investigation reveals that four males that were sitting outside an apartment building were shot multiple times. They all were transported to University Hospital. One of them has been pronounced dead. One of them appears to be in grave condition.

Reportedly, there were two shooters who approached this group; one carried a handgun, the other a rifle. They both fired and ran off.

The Louisville Metro Police homicide division is investigating at this point. Anyone with any information should call the Louisville Metro Police anonymous tip line.

And that was all. No other details will be confirmed this night. With the official story lining my pocket, I set out to give another try to filling in the blanks.

Before securing this job as a breaking news reporter for the Courier-Journal, I had all of 8 hours experience reporting on cops and had never covered a homicide. I remained in the office for much of my first month, at the desk next to the printer with a police scanner at my computer terminal, a row of three televisions behind me. It’s my job to monitor the proper channels, make sure we aren’t missing anything of worth and fulfilling those duties requires many hours in a chair far from the windows of our downtown building. Heading to my first murder on a street called Saddlebrook Lane, I did not know what to expect. I did not know what I’d see, if I’d find a story, or if I’d even find the scene. I had been away from Louisville for much of the last five years and most areas where people are killed, I’ve never frequented. I sped through stop lights hoping not to miss a turn, flying south down Dixie Highway, the neon lights of convenience stores and strip clubs passing in streaks. As I would later learn, finding a murder scene is actually fairly easy. All you need is a general sense of where you are going, then just look for the red and blue flashing lights.

Nearby is a young woman I recognize as a witness from an earlier news broadcast. She didn’t have much to say but it was more detail than I had, so I ask if she can repeat her account for me. She doesn’t know much, was in her apartment nearby when she heard several shots ring out in quick succession and heard a man running down the street past her building. Then she points toward an elderly woman sitting near the caution tape, surrounded by the group I had visited after arriving. She was screaming earlier, I am told. When police escorted her away, she was screaming.

A woman, over here. She was screaming, “Oh my God, Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening. Oh my God.” She was terrified and in tears. I guess it was somebody she was either friends with or related to that got shot.

Louisville is not a Detroit or a Chicago or a Washington D.C., but still has too many homicides for a city of its size – particularly when considering that a majority of the murders take place in a handful of neighborhoods in the west end. The stories covering these crimes can read like a simple flip book with one leading into the next. Often the only personal details about victims recovered are the age and race. And often these follow a familiar song: young and black. Dealing in such an environment, it’s a struggle to make each life relevant to strangers who read about their deaths in print. That’s where the worst part of the job begins.

I put a call in to my editor and read her what I have so she can post a web update. She thanks me from her desk and asks if I’ll be returning soon. “Yeah, soon,” I answer. Not long after I hang up, my phone is vibrating. The police spokesman is on the line, telling me that the second victim has just died.

I thank him for the heads up and look over to the caution tape. To the group that had nothing to say and the woman who was screaming, sitting a few feet from the concrete stoop that had served as someone’s deathbed, the whole scene bathed in the orange glow of streetlights. A few people let out a wail from time to time, some are crying but most are simply staring ahead waiting: waiting to be let into their homes, waiting for the truth to settle to the ground, waiting for the names of the dead. In this block, in this instance, I am a stranger in every conceivable way. A few lives have ended and many more have shattered to bits and I am walking across this parking lot, stepping over the pieces, looking for anyone who can recreate the moment everything fell apart. I am walking to the old woman in the chair. She was screaming when police arrived. Now she sits silently under a stiff sheet of nervous conversation. Beneath the voices pulling at names and fears, if one listens for it, crickets and cicadas sing the faint chorus of any other late summer night.

This woman has short gray hair and large glasses. Her fingers are long and lean and they’re clutching a small girl in her lap and a cordless telephone that seems to be ringing with every breath she takes. I crouch down next to her, introduce myself and ask if she knows anything. Her phone rings and she answers it, giving the caller a few names of those who were shot. She hangs up and the phone rings again. This time she hands it to another woman, who answers, looks back and says someone named Jay is dead.

“Jay’s not dead. They lyin’.”

This old woman’s name is Carolyn Johnson and three of the men shot were her grandchildren – all in their 20s – and the fourth she considered a grandson.

I was lying inside when I heard boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. “It was so powerful it shook the building.” So I come running to the front and I heard somebody banging on my door – “Grandmother! Grandmother, I’ve been shot!” I open the door and Jay fell in. And I tried to get him, “Stay with me, Jay, stay with me!”

She tried calling 911. It was busy. She tried calling family. It was busy. She sat in the foyer of her apartment building, holding the boy, because even in his mid-20s, he was a boy and even more so collapsed in her arms with the life leaking out of him onto the floor.

“Stay with me, Jay, stay with me!”

I don’t know if he listened. Like everyone else, I’m not sure who has been killed yet; it’s too early for names to be released. I am getting the spelling of Carolyn Johnson’s name when another woman on the phone nearby says Jay is dead. Carolyn Johnson looks up and screams again.

“No, it’s not. It’s not Jay!”

She’s rocking in her seat with each hoarse shout, the little girl still in her lap.

“It’s not Jay! It’s not Jay!”

I try to thank her for speaking with me, but she is in another world. I rise and walk from the group but Carolyn Johnson’s cries follow, shooting out to anyone who will listen.

“It’s not Jay! It’s not Jay!”

It’s quick drive back to the newsroom, where I type up the story. It’s quiet there. Chatter on the police scanner has calmed considerably. Copy editors are holding a place in the paper so I hurry and send the story over as fast as I can. I walk across the aisle to my editor’s desk. She is pleased with the details I gathered and tells me to head home. I go out into the night again, drive the few minutes home, lock the door behind me and think about Saddlebrook Lane. I think about Carolyn Johnson. I hope it’s not Jay. He is no more to me than a name, an old woman’s raspy voice, a quote, a compliment from my editor. If it’s not Jay, it’s someone else’s grandson, as equally foreign to me and as equally tragic to another. Still, I hope it’s not Jay.

The next day I show up for work and read over the identities of those killed. Jay turns out to be 25-year-old Jonte Johnson. He was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to the University of Louisville Hospital the previous night and the most we know about him is how he died.

Sean Rose Louisville, KY
502.558.6893
seangrose(at)gmail(dot)com

Sean Rose lives in Louisville, Ky., working as a reporter for the Courier­Journal. He writes fiction and non­fiction in addition to his journalistic work and plays music when time permits.