How many of those who witnessed the brutal murder of Drummer Lee Rigby first hand would have left home that morning expecting to be at the centre of a major international news story?
How many would have expected to see their photos and video footage broadcast around the world and defining the tragic story?
The answer of course is none of them would. Professional news-gatherers - photographers, reporters and television crews - set out every day with the hope and expectation that they will get as close as possible to that day's breaking news. They are prepared for exactly that eventuality and indeed look forward to that call from the News Desk that sees them scramble to the rapidly unfolding story.
Woolwich was that story.
An horrific interruption to an ordinary day on an ordinary street witnessed by ordinary people. But the story was in fact littered by the extraordinary. The killers of Drummer Rigby courted exposure and many of those who just happened to be passing by, were happy to oblige.
But why and at what cost? And what of the innocent woman out shopping with her trolley who casually ignored the chaos around her and just walked on by?
Heroes, and most noticeably, heroines, emerged almost immediately. As Ingrid Loyau-Kennett jumped off her delayed bus she would have had no idea what she was stepping into but her courage and humanity was recorded by other passers-by for the annuals of history.
Professional journalists have in many cases become immune to the horrors of the stories they cover but how do we expect the rest of us to cope when it happens in our own backyard? This tragic sequence of events from the murder itself through to the shooting of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale by the police was witnessed and recorded by the public in such a fashion that they were integral to the story. From the video confession of Michael Adebolajo as he stood in the road, blood dripping from his hands, pleading with onlookers to film him, to the equally shocking shooting of the two suspects by armed police, we were given front-row seats to the horror of the unfolding drama. One eye-witness described it rather revealingly as being "...just like a movie".
The consequences of 'our' involvement and proximity to a dreadful news story are themselves not insignificant. The photos and the video shot by those at the scene - including the photo uploaded to Glopho by Biet Le - were quickly picked up by the media. As news spread of the horror, these images became a valuable commodity but also a controversial one.
The graphic amateur video of Adebowale that was broadcast by ITV and from which most newspapers and websites had 'grabbed' still photos, had attracted over 800 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) within 24 hours. Our willingness to record such horrors is seemingly matched by our discomfort in seeing those same images published and broadcast.
Once again we are reminded that with power comes responsibility as we all become accustomed to our new role as producers not just consumers of news.
