Shortly after the world knew that a bomb had gone off in New York City, Knight News decided to send a reporter to cover the tragedy.
Knight News reporter Michael Williams arrived in Manhattan early Sunday Morning and immediately made his way to one of the press conferences around town. It wasn’t until shortly after that he decided to leave and go on a journey to find his own angle to the story.
“I’m just glad I was able to capture the essence of how New Yorkers came together to support the first responders during an incident like this,” said Williams.
Walking around the streets of NYC, Williams stumbled upon a man approaching several law enforcement and fire department officials with his hands full of coffee and pastries from Starbucks.
The man, Williams later met as Germaine, stopped by and gave several bags of pastries and coffee to the officers and paramedics.
Williams captured the moment on his cell phone video and uploaded it to the Knight News Facebook page, and since then, it has gone viral. The video has been viewed more than 18 million times and has been broadcasted on CNN and all over Twitter. Ellen Degeneres also shared the cell phone video on her personality Facebook page.
Williams was able to catch up with Germaine shortly after the video went viral. Germaine said that he was shocked how many views the video has gotten and that he’s received calls from longtime friends who have seen it.
“I didn’t even know what to say. I didn’t think me giving coffee would be news,” said Germaine.
Germaine is the manager at a Starbucks near the crime scene of the New York bombing and said he just felt like it was the right thing to do.
