Stop Snitchin stifles Kansas City reporters

I do most of my "reporting" from my mom's basement so I have a lot of respect for local newsies who are forced to go out in the field and face the real world consequences of forgotten local communities . . . Even if said reporting happens a lot less than TKC would like.

Recently, a TV industry mag ran a feature story on the dangers of Crime Scene reporting that included tales from Kansas City. Check it:

With 15 years in investigative reporting, from the bloody crack battles of Buffalo to a particularly murderous stretch in Minneapolis, KCTV Kansas City anchor/reporter Craig Nigrelli has developed a fair amount of street savvy when it comes to ferreting out a violent-crime story. But nothing in his bag of tricks could elicit eyewitness information following a deadly melee outside a Knights of Columbus hall in July 2006.

Two college students were killed and 10 more wounded as some 60 shots were fired in a brawl outside the hall. A few hundred people were at the event, yet when police and reporters began canvassing for information, no one seemed to have seen a thing.

Nigrelli says the code of silence surrounding violent crime, the product of a grass-roots campaign called “Stop Snitching,” has a chokehold on Kansas City. At various times while he’s been interviewing witnesses, someone will walk by, repeatedly muttering “click-clock, click-clock”—simulating the sound of a gun cocking and firing. As one might expect, the witnesses promptly clam up.

That's kind of scary, the ubiquitous, nearly unintelligible and sometimes hilarious "at the scene" interview is now in danger because some stupid fad started by scumbags who were just trying to sell t-shirts and DVDs.

The AWESOME NEWSIE Tipster who sent me this my way had also once spotted somebody holding a gun in the field . . . Sadly, I'm not hearing that this situation has grown any better after a ground breaking article about the local phenomenon was published in '05. Nevertheless, I guess it's good that news people are talking even if a large portion of the community has been silenced along with most Kansas City politicos who have ignored the problem of violent crime in Kansas City.