Murder trials and courthouse brawls

This has nothing to do with the book, but it's amusing enough not to share.

I've been covering two murder trials going on at the same time this week. A van pulls up at a party and unloads four guns worth of bullets. The prosecutors say it was a retaliation crime between long-time rival groups on opposite sides of the river. The person who gets killed at this party, populated by a family whose name is constantly linked to crimes? The one girl in three generations of the family who graduated high school. This 19-year-old hadn't even got her first paycheck from her first job.

So we head to trial. All week, these families who have hated each other long before the murder, are forced to be in the same cramped hallways. They're face to face with each other, but things were surprisingly peaceful.

Until Friday.

I was just coming up the stairs, calling in an update to the editor of our Web site. As I'm on the phone, the fight begins right in front of me. What do I do? Stay on the phone and jump in the mix, sort of. I get in closer as a bailiff gets in the mix with about 10 other people. Soon the group shifts my way. I'm doing a play-by-play into my phone considering I'm the only reporter whose witness to this.

And BOOM. I get an elbow to the ribs. Other bailiffs and running down the hallway, shoving cans of pepper spray in people's faces, but not unleashing hell just yet. A can was shoved in my face. And I'm in the middle of it all for the last few seconds until it's broken up.

A bailiff had to be hospitalized. Three guys were arrested.

There I was just doing my job and a fight breaks out. Then I'm part of it. I didn't throw any blows, but the smears of blood on the floor were inches from my feet. And I never got off the phone and we smoked the competition on the scoop.

"So, honey, how was your day at work?"

"Not bad. Check out this bruise."

Rock Town Press

That's right kids, not only am I self-publishing my book, my friend, Aiden Landman, and I are starting our own publishing firm: ROCK TOWN PRESS

My book's the experimental project, followed by a second when he finishes his first novel.

So far, while more writing and editing needs to be done on A Constant Suicide, here's the cast and crew for the finish product.

Rock Town Press logo: Brandon "Brando" Price
ACS Cover: Shawn Eldridge
ACS Artwork: Amanda (Sorry, don't know you last name) from Hickey Brothers
ACS Editor: Aiden Landman
Printer: I-Demand of Davenport, Iowa.

The people are coming together so the thing can go places.

Sorry, that's all I got for now. Murder trials and bar work keeping me busy. More as it comes.