Clair McFarland: World’s Most Coddled Crime Reporter, Ready For Duty

It’s not hard to be a crime reporter, if you’re the most coddled one on the planet.

As I settled in to cook chicken for my kids Wednesday evening, The Husband shot me a text alerting me to a police standoff on the east end of town.

“Be right back,” I told my longsuffering four sons, who knew better than I did that I would not be right back.

I arrived on scene to find deputies and officers retrieving their rifles and shields, surrounding a home and setting up snipers.

The crime tape wasn’t up yet, and I snuggled against the warm fender of a running police vehicle, both for its heat and for fire cover in case of shooting.

“I’m gonna have to ask you to take a few steps back ma’am,” said a stern voice approaching behind me.

I turned to find my older brother in his Riverton Volunteer Fire Department gear, strolling onto the scene with a dozen other firefighters. 

“Make me,” I answered.

My brother grinned.

But then we both got taped out of the scene and separated, he on the east end and I on the north end.

My heater drove away, plunging deeper into the scene.

Still in the flimsy clothes I’d worn to court that day, I shivered.

Without further prompting, a firefighter removed his coat and placed it on me.

I should have seen it coming. Almost exactly five years ago, at a house about three blocks to the south, I covered a nearly identical standoff (except that one ended with a shooting and this one didn’t). And on that night as well, the temperature dropped and I shivered.

A firefighter instantly placed a coat on me then, too.

I have found after several years of covering crime, that where the capacity for violence is greatest, chivalry is also at its peak. It’s the most certain correlation I’ve found in this job.

In my giant firefighter coat, with one hand nestled in a pocket full of tools, I paced. I took notes on my phone.

“If any shooting starts, just hide behind the biggest of us,” said a firefighter.

Eventually I gave the coat back and drove away to buy fast food and deliver it to my boys. Then I raced back to the scene – again forgetting to bring wool socks and warm clothing.

“Are you looking for your sister?” asked a woman who was standing with numerous bystanders on the sidewalk.  

My spunky, pregnant sister lives in that neighborhood but was neither blocked out of her home nor stuck on scene. She and her husband had gone out to the movies.

“Nah, I’m covering the news,” I answered.

Some oil rig workers and truck drivers in their 20s – the salt of the earth and of Fremont County – gathered on a roof to watch the scene.

“Can I come up?” I asked.

“Sure!” answered the homeowner.

The roof was steep. I’m prone to shenanigans and scared of heights, so putting me on anyone’s roof is a terrible idea. But there I stood, willing the bones of my feet to hold me steady.

“Just don’t look down,” said one of the young men standing with me on the roof.

“What are you doing?!” called a voice from the road. It was my younger sister, arriving at her neighborhood after going to the movies.

“Hi honey!” I answered.

She shook her head. She also took a photo of me and sent it to our mom and our dad.

Mom was alarmed.

“Roof hopping?” she demanded in a text message.

“Don’t get shot,” wrote Dad in a simultaneous text message.

My little sister chucked a bottle of water at me. One of the men on the roof caught it and handed it to me.

A while later, The Husband brought me a phone charger.

The 2-year-old daughter of one of the young men chattered at me through a loft window. She alerted me every time the police drone buzzed overhead.

“Plane!” she chirped. “You have ice cream?”

I did not have ice cream.

My sister went to bed. So did most of her neighbors. The negotiations wore on. Law enforcement, emergency medical, and fire personnel remained at their posts as a cold front gripped the town. An armored vehicle and a determined negotiator with a loudspeaker held their stances in front of the house.

Mindful that I had to wake my kids at 6 a.m., I left the scene just after midnight – leaving my cellphone number with a bystander.

The need to balance motherhood with news reporting has always been my professional weakness. But it’s one for which I’m grateful. It keeps me sane; keeps me human.

My editor Greg Johnson woke early and updated my story with the latest news from a police department statement: the suspect had been taken into custody at about 4 a.m. No one was shot, fortunately.

Underwhelming outcomes are good outcomes.

I woke to a text from a colleague praising me for having covered the scene. That’s undeserved praise because – beside the fact that I didn’t stay until the conclusion – I’m also the most coddled crime reporter on the planet.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.