How I Got My Start In Journalism
By brooksie       brooksie@pacificcoast.net
A  teenage girl subdues a thief and holds him for the police.


I wasn't really shooting anything in particular that day. I was outside mainly
because it was such a beautiful day. I had my camera with me as always, and
also a new digital video camera I'd just got. Mostly I was just experimenting,
playing around with it down at the beach. After a while, I started to feel a
craving so I gathered up my stuff and headed towards my favourite beach front
espresso bar. Given the weather, the beach was already getting crowded, even
though it was only ten thirty in the morning. Up ahead, a crowd was gathered.
There were a lot of excited shouts and a palpable level of tension, indicating
something exciting was taking place.

I wish I'd been there for the beginning of it, but by the time I arrived on
the scene, she already had him face down on the sand, one arm twisted behind
his back, the other one dangling uselessly, thanks to the half-nelson hold she
had him in. To make his predicament totally hopeless, she also had one leg
wrapped around one of his in some type of intricate lock. Positioned on his
right side, she was using the half nelson as leverage to keep him rolled over
onto his left side. His left wrist was cranked up to nearly to his shoulder
and his right leg was trapped in her leg lock. It was amazing - the guy
couldn't move at all! She had rendered him absolutely immobile and wasn't even
straining to do it. In fact, when I got there she was in the process of
assuring onlookers that she would have no problem holding him, and would
someone could kindly phone the police.

I couldn't see the guy too well, with his face pushed into the sand and her
draped all over him the way she was. He looked like a fairly young guy, in his
twenties or maybe early thirties. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. He was
no muscle man, but he wasn't skinny either. Average build, I'd say. As for his
assailant, she was not. Of average build, that is. She was obviously a
teenager, but I wouldn't have guessed more than 17. I was later to discover
that I'd overestimated by a year. She was deeply tanned. Her strawberry blonde
hair was tied in a ponytail and she had on only a pair of jean shorts and a
bikini top. I noticed her legs immediately. They were thick, with bulging
calves and thighs that danced with muscular contraction when she shifted them
slightly as she maintained her superior position. Then I noticed her back,
which also rippled with muscle when she moved and had a nice V-shaped taper
from her wide shoulders down to her tiny, trim waist.

The next thing I noticed is that I was just standing there watching with
astonishment, like everyone else. I quickly pulled out the camera, snapped a
couple of pics while she still had him in the hold, then set up my tripod and
mounted the video camera on it. I asked a young couple holding a baby who were
standing beside me if they would keep an eye on it for me, then moved around
the two bodies and took a few more pics from various angles. The whole time I
was doing this, the girl was carrying on a running conversation with the
crowd. From this, I pieced together the story, which was that the guy had
tried to snatch a purse belonging to a young mother who had been distracted by
her kids. She saw the guy at the last moment and screamed at him as he took
off with it. This girl had given chase, run him down and wrestled him to the
ground, where she subdued him with apparently very little effort.

So far, the guy hadn't made any noise, apart from the occasional grunt or
groan. He wasn't struggling, because he really couldn't. In the position she
had him in, it seemed he could do little other that to lay there docilely,
waiting for his inevitable arrest. But as I went to see what the video was
looking like, he started yelling for her to let go of him. He made some
ridiculous sounding threats, based on his helplessness. The girl responded by
twisting his arm even harder, forcing his wrist right up to his shoulder. At
the same time, she straightened her leg, the one wrapped around his. Although
I didn't understand how the hold worked, I had no trouble seeing that this
obviously had a painful effect. He immediately began to beg and plead with her
to stop.

"I told you to be quiet. Are you going to keep your mouth shut?"

"Yes...ok."

"Because I can make this hurt a lot more if I have to."

To prove her point, she jerked his arm up and flexed her leg as hard as she
could.

"I'll be quiet. Please stop, you're going to break my leg."

She relaxed the pressure on both holds a bit.

"I might, if you don't keep your big mouth quiet. Am I going to hear anything
more out of you?"

He didn't answer.

"AM I?" she yelled in his ear.

"No, no. I'll be quiet."

"You'd better be."

By that time, someone had spotted the cops heading down from the parking lot.

"Looks like the party's just about over," the girl said to her captive. Then,
to the onlookers, "What about it? Should I break something while I still have
the chance?"

There was laughter all around, most realizing she was joking. But a couple of
young women who had been watching since before I got there immediately began
encouraging her to do some real damage.

"Break his arm," said one.

"Yeah, it would serve him right," her friend chimed in.

Their voices had malicious, unforgiving tones. But if the girl was at all
inclined to follow their wishes, it was too late. The crowd parted, letting
the cops through, one male and one female. For a second or two, much like I
had done, they just stood there with looks of amazement on their faces.
Finally, the male officer asked what had happened. Several people all spoke at
once, causing him to hold his hand up and call for quiet. Identifying the
woman whose purse had been stolen, he focused on her and got the story.
Meanwhile, the female officer had knelt down beside the girl, asking if she
was ok. I'll never forget her answer.

"Are you kidding? This guy was easy. Piece of cake. I have a harder time with
my 12-year-old brother."

Several people, including the female cop burst out laughing at that. Something
in the girl's tone of voice revealed complete confidence. She had this guy at
her mercy, and everyone there could see it. As if to emphasize how dominant
she was, the guy began appealing to the female officer to get the girl off
him. The laughter continued as he was actually pleading with the cop to arrest
him. Meanwhile the male officer joined them.

"Everything ok?" asked his female partner.

"Yeah. I've got enough info from the victim. She's going to come down to the
station later and make a full statement. Got a couple of witnesses who saw the
whole thing, so we're all set. What's going on here? Things look under
control," he laughed.

"I'd say so," the female cop said, a smile in her voice.

"Ok, let's take him in."

The female officer took out her cuffs. As she did so, the girl gripped the
thief's right wrist and brought his arm behind his back. She did it easily and
efficiently. Letting the leg lock go she mounted him, sitting comfortably on
the backs of his thighs.

"He's all yours," she said, grinning triumphantly at the officer, "ready for
the cuffs."

The female cop giggled slightly and said, "would you like to do it?"

"Could I?" the girl asked, wide-eyed.

"Sure, why not. You've done everything so far and you obviously got him under
control. Here."

She gave the girl the cuffs and instructed her as to how to operate them. As
for the method of application, no advice was needed. The confident, and now
clearly delighted teenager, calmly placed her knee on one of the guy's wrists
while slapping the cuff on the other. Then she attached them to the second
wrist and got to her feet. As she stood there gazing down at the handcuffed,
would-be thief, everything seemed to stop for a second. No one said anything.
I guess we were all just to stunned by what we'd just witnessed. Fortunately,
the first person to say or do anything was me. Just before the officers bent
down to lift the guy to his feet I said, in a loud voice, "Just a minute!"

Everyone turned in my direction.

"Do you think I could get one shot of her and the thief first?"

The two cops looked at each other and shrugged, indicating for me to go ahead.
I asked the girl if she would put her foot on the guy's back and flex her
arms. Thankfully, she agreed. Compared to her legs, her arms didn't look that
big, but as she tightened her them, a pair of very hard looking, highly peaked
biceps rose up. I could hardly hold the camera steady as I snapped the pic.
This was a money shot! I could feel it in my bones.

As the cops carted the guy off, I picked up the video camera and got ready to
follow them so I could get them putting the thief in the cruiser. Suddenly I
realized my dilemma. I had to at least get this girl's name and age to go with
the photo. But I should get the video, for television purposes. I asked the
girl if she would wait for me for two minutes while I shot the remainder of
the arrest.

"Ok!" she agreed.

She was already surrounded by a crowd of people asking where she learned to
wrestle like that and was happily answering their questions, so it didn't
appear she was going anywhere right away. I ran after the cops and not only
got them loading the guy into their vehicle, but the suspect telling them she
should be arrested too, as he planned to file assault charges against her.
Just before they got in the car themselves,

I called out to them.

"Hey! Have you ever had an arrest that easy before?"

"No, that's a first," the male cop said.

"We've had citizens hold perps for us, but it's always at least two or three
people doing it," the female officer added. "Never anything like this."

Turning to her partner, she said, "We should get her on the force."

They both laughed, got in, and drove away. I ran back to the beach, relieved
to see the girl was still there. On the way, I passed by a bunch of high
school boys around the same age as the young heroine. They couldn't contain
their enthusiasm.

"Dude, did you see that? She totally kicked his ass."

"No shit. She had him begging for mercy."

I would have liked to have continued to eavesdrop, but I had to talk to her
while I had the chance. I approached, not exactly inconspicuous with my tripod
and two camera bags hanging off me. She looked over at me.

"Is it all right if I ask you a couple of questions?"

"Ok. Are you a reporter or something?"

"I'm...uh, a freelancer," I said. It wasn't true. I hadn't sold a single
picture to a newspaper, but I felt like that wouldn't be the case after today,
so I took the liberty of counting my chickens before they hatched.

I picked up the video camera and got the girl to give her name and age. I
found out where she went to school and that she was, not surprisingly, on the
school wrestling team. She was also studying jui jitsu and other forms of
grappling at a martial arts studio and had aspirations to compete in the form
of fighting tournaments formerly known as "Ultimate Fighting" which were now,
according to her, referred to as NHB (no holds barred) or MMA (mixed martial
arts) tournaments. I had her tell the story of what happened today and got
some short interviews with the woman whose purse was nearly stolen and a few
other onlookers who had observed the whole incident.

"Is this going to be on TV?" she asked.

"Um, probably in the newspaper first. Maybe even today's, if I hurry."

"Can I get copies of the pictures?"

"Uh, sure. I guess."

I got her number and promised to give her a call.

"You better," she said, smiling "or I'll have to hurt you."

She flexed her arm again, and I took one more shot of her gazing at her own
biceps muscle with pride, then hurried home to go through the pictures. The
video would have to wait. I had a lot of great stuff! The shot with her
flexing, her foot resting on the suspect's back was killer of course, but
there were lots of other good ones, including a fantastic shot of her with a
disarmingly cute smile, her head cocked as she looked up at someone she was
conversing with, while she casually maintained her invincible grip on the guy.
The combination of her youthful beauty and her utter dominance over her larger
male foe was compelling, to say the least. I also had a cool shot of her
cuffing the thief, but something in me was saying no to that one. I mean, that
had to be against police procedure and I didn't want to get the cops in hot
water. I left it off the compilation disk.

Once I had a decent selection and had rewritten my hastily scribbled notes,
grabbed the video camera and took off for the newspaper building.

No sense phoning, I figured. My plan was to just show up and try to talk to an
editor or reporter. I waited at reception while they rang up to the newsroom.
A few moments later, the receptionist handed me the phone and I told the
person on the other end, to turned out to be the city desk editor what I had.
My instincts were right! He told me to come right up. I took the elevator to
the fourth floor and when the door opened, he was there to meet me. As we
scrolled through the dozen or so photos on the desk, I told him the story. He
asked me several questions and seemed pleased that I had the answers to them,
and even more so when

I told him what was on the video. He asked me to wait in his office for a
minute and went to find a reporter. She and I went to another room and she
basically interviewed me about the incident. I gave her every detail,
including the arresting officer's badge numbers. The only thing I left out was
the part about them letting the girl cuff the suspect herself. We watched the
video interviews I'd done and she took a few more notes, after which she took
me back to the city desk editor's office. He explained what was to happen. It
was too late for today's paper but the story would be in the next morning's
edition. It would have the reporter's byline on it, with me getting photo
credits. He offered what I assumed was the standard rate for freelance
pictures. I suppose I could have haggled, but I didn't want to. It wasn't
about the money. I wanted desperately to be in journalism and this was a
valuable connection. I accepted his offer without question and really raised
my stock by offering not to take the video to any broadcast outlets until the
next day, so the paper would have an exclusive.

The story appeared on page one of the city section next morning. Of course,
they used the picture I had the girl pose for. But inside, there was another
shot of her with the thief trapped in her combination hold. It was one where I
got right down on my belly, so his expression of agony is captured, as is her
determined, confident one. I went out for breakfast and actually overheard
people in the café talking about it.

Needless to say, when I phoned my favourite TV station to say I had video of
it, they were interested. I got to work with a female reporter who I'd always
considered a real cutie, and added bonus, and the story aired that evening.
I'd contacted them right after breakfast, so they had time to do their own
interview with the girl. I got to tag along, and understood why they didn't
use my interview once I saw the reporter in action. The girl had a high school
wrestling tournament this weekend!

I hadn't even thought to ask about anything like that. Still, the reporter
said she was very impressed with the video I'd shot and they used some of it
in the story. She said the fact I'd thought to get the cops putting the
suspect in the car showed I had a natural grasp of the visual element of TV
news. Her editor agreed and asked if I'd like to shoot the wrestling
competition for a possible follow up story on the girl, next week. As it
turned out she won her weight class, as well as being named best overall
wrestler of the tournament, becoming the first city girl to go to the state
finals. The girl had become an instant local celebrity, and I lucked my way
into a summer internship with the station. I switched my shifts at the
restaurant where I worked to all nights and by the time summer was over, I had
a regular shift at the station on weekends and enough freelance photography
work to allow me to quit my restaurant job and enrol in some journalism
courses at college. Things continued to progress and before long, I was
employed as a journalist full time.

And the girl? She actually went on to become a big name professional wrestler,
using the name Trish something-or-other, I can't quite recall at the moment.