Tad Vezner's Blog

Looking for "Good"

Sometimes when you work a lot of long nights, where news can be kinda grim, you try to remember some of the good people you've met. I know, as a reporter you bristle at the naivete of calling people "good" (no simple stories -- there's always something, right?), but...

This couple were definitely two of the best, to me. Call me a sucker, but hey, if you can't have faith in a pair like that, you're a more hardened soul than I am. In the city, I've rarely seen such selflessness.

Been wondering la...

An Unhappy Ending

Welp, everybody said it would happen. James Fields, the East Side gang leader I profiled here , has been arrested and convicted of shooting a gun at someone after a heated argument outside a bar. A guy who testified against his brother during a murder trial. Even my editors joked about how shocked they were.

Everybody wants a simple story. Let's face it: it's easy not to have any faith in folks like James, or to see him as a "good" or "bad" guy. There's people who say - casually, and let's face...

Quintessential Confidence Man

I don't think I've ever gotten more phone calls -- not for murders or rapes or, well, anything -- than I did about this guy: by all reports the quintessential con man. It started with a simple theft by swindle of the St. Paul Hotel, a couple thousand dollars. In the following weeks, I made contact with two ex-girlfriends who said he'd taken them for tens of thousands.

At first it was hard to believe -- but after some follow-up, the stories were all the same. In time, five e...

The Kinda Folks You Meet: Part 3

It took three months to get James Fields to talk to me, and I don't think he ever called or returned a call.  I didn't take it personally, though, and the amount he opened up in the end was surprising, given his history.

James founded The East Side Boys, one of the city's two largest street gangs.  I have a hard time trusting anyone, but James has a certain candor to him.  Maybe I do trust him a little, though I got plenty of calls telling me I shouldn't.  You be the judge...

The Kinda Folks You Meet: Part 2

Here's another night shift lover: one of the spunkiest cabbies you'll ever meet. I'll probably do a video a month with Chey; she's a blast. As she notes, only 1 in 400 cabbies is female, but she handles the screwball drunks pretty well.

The Kinda Folks You Meet

Been doing a few ridealongs with people that actually like the night shift, and worked up a few videos. Here are a few: two paramedics that much prefer the traffic-free streets and crazy calls of the after hours.

Somewhere to go

So we're not supposed to know anything about juveniles in the justice system: their cases are off-limits to info requests, you don't see their names in criminal complaints, and nobody is authorized to say squat about them.
But occasionally you hear things. Because they seem to be the cases that affect cops the most. 
Take tonight for example: an 11-year-old kid who broke a window and pulled a knife in a foster home, and the others won't take him because he's already been through all of them...

Thanks where it's due

I remember growing up, at the end of the night when there wasn't anything better to do, we'd ask each other who our heroes were. Eddie Vedder, Gandhi, heck I was an 80's child. But a year ago I met a new one.
I read about Amanda Hocking on a website somewhere, but no large American newspaper had done a story on her. It was like she didn't exist, as far as the U.S. media was concerned. Papers in Germany and the U.K. were writing all sorts of things about her, but as for us… barely a peep...

A little reading to take the edge off

So after burning gallons of midnight oil, I went ahead and pushed out a novel that has absolutely no relation to my day-to-day reality. One, I live in the frigid Midwest, and it's set in the Arizona desert. Plus there's a space station that reaches from the earth to the heavens, so there's that.

But there is a little homicide and fugitive manhunts and ... well anyway, I'm happy with it, and I hope other folks will be too. You can find it on Amazon here.

Silent Nights

Contrary to conventional wisdom, after six years as a night reporter covering a lot of crime, I can safely say that people don't stab or shoot or strangle each other with any higher frequency during the holidays. It's long been the belief among jaded reporters such as myself that if you pack a bunch of relatives in a house, add a rack of sharp knives, some cabin fever and a dash of financial stress, it's a quick and easy recipe for domestic assault.

But after six years, I have to say that...