One news event I remember with photographer Ron Montelepre was the great Black Panther shooting in 1970, when an army of New Orleans police with state police support surrounded some Black Panthers in the Desire Housing Project. 

I remember buses of police and tank-like vehicles being moved into a staging area and the troops heading out to the shootout in single file. There were no police controls on the media then, and every reporter was trying to get the story.

Ron and I crossed the street Audie Murphy style, zig-zagging because we could hear shots being fired. Then we were in a 15-foot deep drainage ditch that meandered throughout New Orleans with grassy sloping sides leading to water of dubious origin (some alligators have been found living a life of luxury there).

We were inching our way toward the Black Panther house. Suddenly I heard one of my colleagues (Bob Krieger) standing up screaming and swatting at his lap with his reporter’s notebook. 

That distracted us a moment from the gun battle, thinking he had been hit by friendly fire. But his cries of “fire-ants” and his increasing dance of the demented on the sloping drainage ditch put our minds at rest. Then it was quiet. The bullets and fire-ants had stopped. Looking up over the lip of the ditch we couldn’t really see anything. 

It wasn’t until later editing the film that I was impressed with a part of the soundtrack – in all this chaos, birds were singing! I mentioned it to Ron who gave me a wry smile. It was only later I found out it was him bird whistling so that the microphone on the CP16 film camera picked up the sounds. It was first of case of Tweeting that I have documented.