By Ethan Bauer, B.S. Journalism 2018

The night of Oct. 1 was relaxing, like a cup of hot chocolate before bed. It was cozy. It was still. Wade Millward, B.S. Journalism 2014, was unpacking his suitcase. Scott Davidson, B.S. Journalism 2013, was enjoying a bowl of ramen noodles. Briana Erickson, B.S. Journalism 2017, was driving home. And Rachel Crosby, B.S. Journalism 2015, was preparing to watch the season finale of the Adult Swim cartoon “Rick and Morty.” All while bullets darted into a sea of civilians several miles away.

The stillness was broken by the ping of a text message.  “Report of two active shooters at Mandalay Bay,” it read. “Who’s available to help?”

Millward, Davidson and Crosby had just returned from the Nevada Press Association Awards in Carson City. They’d just arrived home after the seven-hour drive back to Las Vegas, but all three answered immediately. Erickson was told to wait until morning to head out. Crosby, who’d won the Journalist of Merit Award a night earlier and now stood in her home with her hair still wet following a shower, sent another message to her colleagues.

“Take a deep breath,” it read in part. “Watch your surroundings. Make sure you know where an exit is at all times, and if something happens while you’re walking or driving, GET OUT and keep going. We’ll get the information regardless — we know this town better than anyone.”

What followed was days of sleepless nights and endless phone calls. Of tears and pain and hugs. All four of them are in their 20s, and none of them expected to be covering the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Not at their ages. Not in their city, dammit. It’s something, Erickson said, that’s impossible to prepare for. But all of them used techniques they learned at the College in their reporting, and in doing so, they’re hoping they’ve made — and can continue to make — a difference despite the bombardment of death and tragedy. Despite diving into their work to distract them. Despite the death toll of 58.

“Almost every time I’ve been driving somewhere, I’ve been crying,” Erickson said. “I’ll just break down and cry in my car.”

It was around 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 1 when Millward, who covers retail and manufacturing, saw the text message. He had another one from Davidson, who he’d carpooled with from the awards. “Hey man,” it read, “you going to this?”

“This” could have meant anywhere. For Millward, it meant Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, which is about 15 minutes from where the shooting took place. When he arrived, he started talking to family and friends of victims who were packed into the overflowing lobby. Inside, people were missing shirt and shoes, and the hospital was handing out flip flops. Outside, Millward found an abandoned bloody shirt.

“It was a smoke-free campus,” he said, “but given what’d just happened, they made an exception.”

He was allowed to go home around 3 a.m., but he lives by the police station and saw press conferences being held. He stopped, listened and learned the shooter’s name — Stephen Paddock — as well as where he was from — Mesquite, Nevada. He immediately started the 1- to 2-hour drive to Mesquite.

When he arrived, he found “immaculate” golf courses and neighbors who called Paddock reclusive. He also found Paddock’s house and climbed a ravine to get a picture of it.

“I got cactus needles in my pants and was covered in sand,” he said, “but it was worth it.”

He never really thought about his journalistic training in those moments, but in reflecting on it later, he recalled what a great mentor Journalism Master Lecturer Mike Foley was, and what a great opportunity it was to work for former Innovation News Center Director Matt Sheehan, and how he was formed by WUFT News, and how Journalism Professor Norm Lewis was an influential teacher who made Millward a “walking AP Stylebook.”

But despite covering an execution while in college and working as a full-time business reporter since his graduation in 2014, at times the scale of the tragedy felt overwhelming. The Review-Journal brought in grief counselors for that reason. “It’s something I would consider for sure,” Millward said.

Davidson, who covers Clark County government, guzzled down his ramen that Sunday night and scrambled to put his pants back on. He started hearing sirens while he did, which was strange. He lives about half an hour from where the shooting was happening. “This just seemed different,” he said.

He sped toward the Mandalay Bay, but the Las Vegas strip was blocked off. He stopped at a gas station about a mile northwest of the hotel instead. He noticed people coming from the direction of the hotel were wearing purple wrist bands. He knew the Route 91 Harvest music festival was taking place, and as a frequent music festival attendee himself, he also knew what those bands meant.

“Boom,” he thought. “Everyone I see with one of those, I’m gonna try to interview.” He did, and he said it wasn’t very hard to do. Most people wanted to talk, although not all. He overheard one woman who said she’d tied a tourniquet onto someone, but did not want to be interviewed. .

He tried to be empathetic through it all, offering one woman whose phone had died the option of charging it in his car. He tried not to block empathy out at such an uncertain time. He also remembered the best journalistic advice he got before graduating from UF in 2013, courtesy of Foley. It was magnified in this situation.

“He always said the No. 1 rule of journalism is, ‘Don’t f*ck up,’” Davidson said. “And it really is.”

But there are some things he couldn’t control, whether with empathy or journalistic grit. Namely the threat of more violence. That was the hardest part.

“We were being told there may be more shooters all over the city,” he said. “So I’ll be honest — I was scared that I would go to this area with a lot of people, start interviewing them and this guy would open fire on us. But you’ve gotta kind of suppress that and just stay aware of your surroundings.”

Crosby, who covers Nevada state courts, also headed to a hospital when she got the text, but she didn’t go to the same one as Millward. Instead, she drove to University Medical Center, which was already full.

“It was chaos,” she said.

While standing outside near the back entrance, she watched as doctors and nurses dressed in scrubs shuffled in and out of the doors. After about 20 minutes, two nurses came out and smoked cigarettes. One of them knelt and called a loved one.  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he kept repeating. “It’s not one person. It’s not one person. It’s not one person.”

Crosby is unique among the UF grads working at the Review-Journal in that she lived in Las Vegas starting when she was 5 until she left for college. She’d started working at the Review-Journal in December 2015 after internships with the Tampa Bay Times and Chicago Tribune covering late-night crime, which gave her a home-spun bond with the city as well as a relationship with useful sources.

“Please let me know what you know,” she told them, “because we know nothing.”

She wanted to know. She wanted to inform the people in her city. She used the skills she acquired as an editor at the Independent Florida Alligator, where she covered the FSU library shooting in 2014, to do it. And eventually, she got her bittersweet wish.

“When I got that confirmation that 20 people were dead, I mean, you can see on Twitter the next thing I said is ‘I love you Las Vegas,’” she said. “Because, you know, it’s that realization that f*ck. This is real. And then it got worse.”

Erickson, a general assignment reporter, didn’t have to deal with that. She was driving when word of the shooting reached the paper, and by the time she responded, her editor said she ought to just wait it out and take over in the morning. She did, but she barely slept. She was up until 3 a.m. listening to sirens assault the walls of her apartment.

“I went to bed at 3 a.m. and it was 20 people dead,” she said. “I woke up and it was 50. That’s how I started my work day.”

She left her apartment around 6 a.m. and drove to the blood drive, where she relieved her co-worker Mike Shoro. They hugged, and they cried. Erickson spent the rest of the day speaking with people as they walked out, but one woman stood out. She was holding a peanut butter sandwich but couldn’t eat it. Her voice trembled.

“It’s just — now hitting me — that this is real,” she said. “I don’t — remember faces well — but I remember — the officer’s face — when he told us to run.

“And he was helpless.”

Again, Erickson hugged her and cried. “I almost feel empty,” she said.

In the days since, she’s covered the “hero beat,” trying to find stories of valor and courage amid the calamity and destruction. Among her contributions to the Review-Journal’s coverage was getting a source to send her a 10-minute video he captured of the shooting. The entire last 10 of the 11 rounds of gunfire.

She’s already covered two mass shootings at 23 years old. Back at UF, she covered the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. When the shooting in Las Vegas happened, she’d been a staffer for less than a month. But despite her relative inexperience, she hears her former professors in her head when she’s writing, whether about Pulse or Vegas or anything else.

“I’m writing as if I’m trying to impress Foley all the time,” she said. “So I’m always thinking what would Foley do.”

But those moments to think about detailed writing don’t last. And that could be a good thing. Crosby said burying herself in her work helps to cope with the loss, and her colleagues agree. Working 12 to 13 hours a day in the immediate aftermath ensured they couldn’t get caught too deep in feelings. And sure, they still cry and pout and wonder why. But they also know those things won’t help any of the people affected by the disaster. The people they serve.

“Right now, when the story fades and the news cycle changes for the national media, and they pack up their bags and leave, we’re gonna be here,” Erickson said. “And we’re gonna be telling the harder stories. We’re gonna be asking the harder questions. And hopefully, we can try to make a difference.”

Posted: October 17, 2017
Category: Other news of interest
Tagged as: Briana Erickson, Ethan Bauer, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rachel Crosby, Scott Davidson, Wade Millward