GREG RISLING -- Reporter’s notebook

It’s hard to write a column when you don’t have any words.

Ever had so much emotion bubbling underneath and be totally speechless?

That’s how I feel sometimes when talking about the Costa Mesa playground

tragedy.

Six months ago, Steven Allen Abrams, a despondent ticket dealer, plowed

into an East Side playground and changed the lives of many people,

including my own.

He drove his dilapidated 1967 Cadillac into a playground full of young

children, killing 4-year-old Sierra Soto and 3-year-old Brandon Wiener.

Four other children and a teacher’s aide were also injured.

Covering such an event wears on you after doing story after story, day

after day. Don’t think that watching a parent grieve during her only

daughter’s funeral or seeing the operator of a day care center collapse

in a church doesn’t affect some of us in the media.

Most of us can set aside our feelings and take the task at hand:

interviewing victims’ families, hunting down court documents, trying to

answer any lingering questions.

This time was different, though. These were children. Innocent children.

Some of whom wouldn’t hurt an ant if it crossed their path.

It was tough to grasp the sights flashing before my eyes when myself and

a Pilot photographer were two of the first on the scene that day. Next to

the paramedics and police officers who were trying to assemble some calm

amid the chaos, we were watching the drama unfold before our eyes. I

couldn’t write a word, even if someone forced my hand.

A woman screaming and crying was escorted by a friend across the street

and led into a car. Little did I know at the time it was Pam Wiener, who

was about to learn her son was no longer alive.

A firefighter was hunched over a yellow tarp covering Sierra Soto’s body.

The plastic cover was too small. Only the grief-stricken firefighter knew

the horrible sight underneath. A painful pang ran like a lightning bolt

through my stomach.

Abrams sat still in his car, never flinching, just looking straight

ahead.

It was an eerie sight all around. It was becoming too much to take.

And that’s when I saw Dave Snowden, the somber Costa Mesa police chief,

who was walking my way.

I asked him what happened. Mind you, no information had been released at

that point. He paused, began to walk away, then turned around and

whispered in my ear:

“He did it on purpose,” he said.

A fellow reporter of mine, Andrew Harris, who was standing next to me at

that moment, later told me my face went pale when the chief gave me the

chilling insight.

For the first time, I let my feelings get the better of me.

Up until that moment, I had always been a rock. Wouldn’t let anything

rattle me. Seeing children killed -- some not even old enough to ride a

bike -- changed all that.

We covered the tragic aftermath for two weeks straight. The story

consumed me. Nightmares began to penetrate my dreams.

Then, there were the moments never mentioned in any of the many that

appeared in the Pilot.

* The moment when 5-year-old Victoria Sherman was wheeled into the

courtyard by her mother. The little girl’s face was blank, her eyes an

empty void as she sat motionless in a wheelchair. Her fragile body,

probably weighing less than 50 pounds, was shattered in several spots.

Yet she came back to school a week after that horrific incident. Her

friends enveloped her with love, teachers sat crying and parents watched

in awe.

* The first time I sat down with Sierra Soto’s mom, Cyndi, in an empty

dance studio. There was a poster-sized photograph of Sierra that was used

in the paper. Cyndi was looking into her daughter’s eyes. The only sound

was the cold, methodical snap of the camera shutter. The shoot must have

lasted 10 minutes. It was excruciating on both Cyndi and myself. She

needed a few minutes to compose herself before the interview began.

Six months have passed and the school has captured some of which it

temporarily lost. The joyful chatter of children has returned, teachers

are settling back into their routines and a new concrete wall was

constructed.

My thoughts are still with those who were severely affected that day.

Every day for a year, I drove down Orange Avenue back to work after

picking up lunch and the police logs. Since the playground tragedy, I

drive down Santa Ana Avenue -- one block over -- where the child-care

center is located. My subconscious tells me I should be a watchdog,

making sure they are safe from further harm.

But there is a problem with that line of thinking. Random violence

happens every day. It can happen in Littleton, Colo., at a school where

most of the students come from affluent families. It can happen in

Honolulu, where an angry copier repairman shoots up his office. Or in

Seattle, where someone goes into a shipyard and randomly fires at dock

workers.

It happened in Costa Mesa, eight blocks from where I work.

It scares me to think it could happen again.

* GREG RISLING covers cops and courts for the Daily Pilot. He can be

reached at (949) 574-4226.