Two days. Two breaking news stories. Several hours of sitting in the control room, broadcasting continuous coverage to South Florida. Yesterday a teacher was shot outside of Miami Carol City High School while taking a smoking break across the street from the school. Today, a BSO Deputy was shot while transporting a prisoner to court.
I woke up this morning to find out yet another deputy had been shot. We covered the Today Show to bring you the search for the suspect… and didn’t get off the air until he was caught this afternoon. When looking at the mugshot, I couldn’t help but get this sense of familiarity. I’d seen him somewhere before. As producers, we get mugshots emailed to us all the time so we can put them in newcasts. The shooting suspect, Michael Mazza, was in our inbox in February after a bank robbery in Coral Springs. Eeery.
Today another BSO Deputy died on duty. He was 76 yrs old and had recently come out of retirement to do light duty.
As producers, we spent several hours in the control room. The 6pm producer and I were in the booth from 10am until shortly after 1pm. Non-stop, no commercial breaks, until this guy was caught. It’s days like these that remind us of how important our job is. Within moments we had the suspects mugshot on the air, broadcasting it to all of South Florida… to make sure we got him in custody.
It’s going to be another crazy afternoon… as we learn more about the suspect and the innocent man who died on duty today.
