Covering An Arrest Means Tracking Down Arrestees

I'm Anika Myers Palm and I'm with the Orlando Sentinel. When you have an arrest happen and you need to cover that arrest or you find out that there's an arrest that's going to happen. Usually what will happen is that you'll either hear about it on the scanners or the law enforcement agency that's handling the arrest will give you a call or an e-mail and let you know hey, something might be happening soon. Sometimes you will get that notice and you'll be able to be there when that arrest happens. Other times you won't be able to be there and you will get to know because the law enforcement agency will call you and say why don't you come down to the jail and we will let the arrestee do a perp walk. So you'll get to be there maybe you can take photos and you might even get to shout a question or two and sometimes they'll answer, not always, but sometimes they will. After that you can submit a request to the prison or the jail and ask whether the arrestee will talk to media. Sometimes, depending on the crime the prison or jail may not let them. Sometimes the person him or herself will say I don't want to talk to media. So you'll figure that out as it happens. Then you're, you'll be dealing with the court system so the arrestee will have to be arraigned and you'll deal with a trial after that if it comes to that if there are no plea deals made.