About Me
I began to take an interest in photography while serving in the Army during combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. With no room on combat convoys for a bulky DSLR camera, I carried a pocket-sized digital camera and took photos of amazing people, architecture and sights I had never seen before.
When I returned stateside, I was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington. I quickly made friends with the Army public affairs photojournalists who convinced me to attend the military school for journalism — The Defense Information School at Ft. Meade, Maryland. There, I would harness some skills I already taught myself about photojournalism and discover new talents hiding beneath my gruff exterior. I graduated in the top 10 of my class and began writing and photographing stories for the US Army.
Once I left the armed forces, I freelanced for 10 months with a small newspaper before being hired at the Southern California News Group's San Bernardino Sun newspaper. In February 2013, I was thrust into the limelight after I found myself in the middle of a fierce gun battle between rogue ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner and members of law enforcement from around Southern California.
A few months later I helped break another story that would shock the world — the grizzly discovery of the missing McStay family buried in shallow graves in a remote area near Victorville, California. Since then I have again been the first reporter on the scene of two other international news stories — the December 2, 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino and the North Park Elementary School shooting on April 10, 2017.

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