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It’s an inevitable part of any photojournalist’s career that he/she will cover a controversial issue or event. I’ve seen my fair share during my brief career ranging from a meth bust on my first day of work to today’s event that saw a man sitting atop a fence overlooking a rail yard, which resulted in an hour-long standoff with police.

Today, the man did not jump as a group of three police officers seized him. They pulled him from the fence in a split second as seen in the slide show above. During this instance, I shot between 10 and 15 frames — in all, maybe 100.

We field a number of calls from angry or curious readers who question or want to know the thought process in our decision to run such photos. Last year, dozens upon dozens of people called and complained after I shot — and we ran — a photo a rollover accident.

Many felt it was a disrespectful display on our part. Some suggested we be sued for running such graphic images. So why is it that we choose to run photos that often depict a more graphic side of life? Do we lack common decency?

No, we are just like everyone else, but we do have a public service to provide.

In our meeting today, photo chief Michael Smith and I argued with executive editor D. Reed Eckhardt to run a second photo to further illustrate the situation. He declined and argued that if we allow one person to act insanely and reward their behavior with sizable coverage in the paper, then copycats will follow and line up on the Warren Avenue Viaduct for their chance to grace the pages of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

It is the nature of our society to follow fads. And just like Crocs or tribal tattoos, people mimic other bad decisions like school shootings or murder suicides. So it is with a great deal of consciousness that we report on such issues. When running images like the ones featured above, we take into consideration whether the photo is worthy of using space.

One of my great professors, George Gladney, had a theory on how to handle copycat behavior, “Run it once and then hide it inside the paper or omit it altogether the next time.” His theory was to eliminate the potential that people would behave badly based solely on the fact that they would be publicized for their stunts.

Eckhardt made particular note of this theory, as mentioned above. In deciding to run the photo in today’s paper, we compromised and elected not to run the individual’s face in print to avoid the possibility that a copycat would duplicate the stunt in hopes of being seen. We published an image based solely on the news worthiness of the story itself: a man dangling from a viaduct with a plethora of police officers (paid by our tax dollars) trying to lure him away from the edge. In addition, a number of citizens were affected by the event as the viaduct was closed during the incident, which caused traffic to be backed up on the side streets of south Cheyenne as motorists attempted to transport themselves to the other side of the tracks.

In short, this was an event that affected a large number of people in our community, and thus, had impact on our lives making it worthy of using our space.

Thanks for looking.