Hispanic Liasion Police Officer Demaso Medel

Another freelance assignment for the Virginian Pilot about the Norfolk Police Hispanic Resource Officer. This guy is the nicest cop I ever met. He’s like the stereotype of the beat cop who used to walk the streets, knew all the citizens and was just there to help. His duties go so far beyond just being a police officer too. He told me that people call him to ask him about their daughter’s dating. He’s from Chile and retired from the Navy to become a police officer. I had to translate for the reporter and as a side note, I clued him in on two other good stories that he wouldn’t have known about since he didn’t understand what the speaker’s were saying. Nice guy, but “Spanish for Reporters” obviously didn’t cut. Mine was pretty rusty, so the whole thing was kind of a shit show from that perspective. The assignment was for a meeting geared towards local Hispanics to get information about immigration and getting their naturalization/citizen documents in order. Holy bureaucracy, Batman. Essentially a meeting shoot, but I enjoyed it. The third image ran on the Hampton Roads section front too, which is always nice. Yes there’s one with his foot in the frame, but there’s no moment. Need to get better at composing on the fly.

This is online Pilot story: http://www.link757.com/2010/05/outreach-hispanics-gives-officer-mission-and-edge?cid=rltd