I got my first taste of a breaking police story on Tuesday. It wasn’t something I’d ever looked forward to doing.

Our managing editor called the newsroom around 10 p.m. and said he’d seen a brief TV news report that said a 10-year-old boy had been shot. The wire editor, the person in charge of breaking stories, had already left for the night, so the Institute’s director, Don Hecker, needed someone to go to the scene.

“Who’s going to take this?” Hecker asked the newsroom.

Most of us were dead-tired, on deadline, and hoping to catch a few hours of sleep. The room went silent.

“We need volunteers,” Hecker said again. Stephen Ceasar raised his hand to pitch in. At the same time, I had stood up to let Hecker know I could take the story. But when I saw Ceasar raise his hand, I went back to blogging.

I didn’t realize Hecker was also looking for someone to go to the scene and had asked who could drive there. The students looked around. Then Cecilia Perry, one of our diligent copy editors, reminded Hecker that I had also volunteered. (Thanks.)

Hecker asked if I had a car. Yes. Before I knew it, my sweater was on, and with notebook and pen in hand, I raced to my car.

In about seven minutes, I made it to North Columbus Boulevard and East Third Street, where I saw flashing cop lights, TV crews and crime-scene tape.

I interviewed a police sergeant and phoned the information to Ceasar, who wrote the story, but we were missing one piece of critical information: the victim’s last name.

Officers wouldn’t release the name, so I tried neighbors. The first house I walked to had a sign near the door warning that trespassers would be shot dead and that survivors would be shot again. No one answered.

I tried a few more houses with no luck. Then, I tried one last house. A man opened the door but kept the security gate closed. He seemed fine at first when I told him I was a reporter, but when I started asking questions, he became angry.

“No comment! No comment!” the man yelled while closing his door and pushing his barking dogs into the house. “You get off my property!”

I apologized for bothering him, turned around and started toward the sidewalk.

“You get off my property now!” he demanded one more time.

Salvador Rodriguez