Ariela Lopez, Contributing Photographer

On Feb. 21, five days after his newborn nephew died in an accident involving the family dog, Kevin Morse fought back tears to record a live video for his thousands of Facebook followers.

Morse is the founder and operator of On Scene Media New Haven County, a real-time true-crime reporting platform that toes the line between citizen journalism and social media entertainment. Day and night, he records incidents around New Haven County — from missing pets to stolen cars to active shootings — and fields calls and messages from followers with crime tips. 

But in February, On Scene Media’s viewers asked him to report on an accident too close to home.

“We were getting inquiries about the incident in our inboxes, people asking if we were going to share about the incident, not knowing that it was tied to my family,” Morse recalled. “I’m the news guy, and it’s one of those things where it’s like, what if it happens to you? How would you handle it?”

In his seven-minute Facebook video, Morse tearfully described the incident as “the hardest thing we ever had to walk through,” and thanked the emergency departments in Milford on behalf of his family. He concluded the livestream with his customary sign-off: “Stay safe.”

Launched in May 2020, On Scene Media has amassed over 157,000 followers across Facebook and Instagram. But Morse does more than just inform.

He fields hours-long phone calls from victims’ families seeking reassurance. He recalls loaning his drone to the New Haven Fire Department to search a collapsed building for victims. He uploads photos of community members’ missing pets, urging his followers to contact him if they have any tips. He sometimes arrives at crime scenes before the police.

“Helping other people is the number one thing that helps me stay sober and stay connected and grounded spiritually,” Morse said.

Repaying a lifelong ‘debt to society’

Born and raised in Milford, Morse began using substances — cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana — as a young boy. Though his parents were not regular drug users, Morse said he was influenced by an older brother. 

In sixth grade, alcohol poisoning sent Morse to the hospital in the middle of a school day. He remembers snorting Ritalin off of his desk with classmates in seventh grade. A football injury-induced Vicodin prescription got him hooked on opioids as a preteen. 

When Morse began stealing from his parents to buy substances, they kicked him out of the house. He was homeless for periods, relying on shoplifting to finance his drug use. 

A 2007 burglary of a Milford home landed Morse in prison for a little over four months before his release in July 2009. Morse credits his time in prison with finally forcing him to stop using substances. After his release, he returned to his pregnant girlfriend and their son, determined to stay clean.

Two years into his sobriety, Morse began working with people recovering from substance addictions. He eventually started his own addiction recovery business, escorting people who use substances to treatment centers across the country, vetting centers “as if I was going to send my own child there.” Morse’s profile grew when he was featured in a 2019 BBC documentary about the U.S. opioid crisis.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Morse’s substance use intervention services came to an abrupt halt. A cannabidiol, or CBD, store he had started with his business partner, Justin Shipchack, also shuttered. 

Faced with “a lot of downtime,” Morse bought a police radio and began listening to the New Haven Police Department and West Haven Fire Department channels. He’d grown up listening to his father’s police radio until the Milford Police Department encrypted their channels. 

After learning that local news outlets only reported a few of the police dispatches, Morse and Shipchack started driving to crime scenes and documenting what was taking place. They created On Scene Media’s Facebook page on May 10, 2020.

Morse said he initially saw On Scene Media as a hobby to keep him occupied during the pandemic. But as the months passed, he became more absorbed in his work, even when Shipchack decided to step away from the company in the spring of 2021. 

Morse sees On Scene Media as his way of repaying his “debt to society” from his adolescence and early adulthood.

“I do feel that I am giving back and paying societal, lifelong restitution,” he said. 

Behind the Scene 

Morse runs On Scene Media out of a tiny office room, which he refers to as his “secret bat cave.” A bookshelf exhibits “The Art of War,” “The Art of the Samurai” and various other self-help books. The walls are adorned with movie posters and a framed print of Batman’s logo and quote “Everything’s Impossible Until Somebody Does It.” 

Though the office is set up for just one person, Morse emphasized On Scene Media’s collaborative nature. The company’s team consists of Morse and four “admins,” who share tips in a group chat. Whichever team member is closest to the incident heads to the scene and begins live-streaming, according to Avontay Yarbrough, a New Haven-based admin who described himself as an On Scene Media field correspondent. 

Yarbrough said he was drawn to join On Scene Media in early 2022 because “we can say whatever we want.” He owns and operates one of On Scene Media’s three drones.

Lynn Stula, a custodian at West Haven’s Edith E. Mackrille Elementary School and the only female member of the On Scene team, got involved in On Scene Media shortly after Yarbrough. Stula told the News that Morse asked her to join the team because she kept sending him tips through Facebook Messenger. 

Stula owns three police radios: one for her house, one for her car and one she listens to while she’s at work. Yarbrough is a self-described radio junkie who has listened to police radios since he was little.

All four admins have full-time jobs and do not receive compensation for their work on On Scene Media, according to Morse. The company’s revenue — and Morse’s income — stems from advertisements for local businesses posted on On Scene Media’s Facebook page.

On Scene Media’s revenue took a hit when Facebook stopped monetizing the account in November 2023, citing its departure from the platform’s community values. Morse said he was forced to stop paying one of his admins, who he had previously compensated biweekly.

“If it weren’t for outlets like On Scene Media, some of these things would go completely unnoticed,” Yarbrough said. “The people of New Haven deserve to know the truth.”

The art of war

Just months after Morse launched On Scene Media in 2020, the New Haven Independent reported on controversy surrounding the account in the New Haven community. Some residents accused Morse and Shipchack of profiting off of the sensationalist potential of violent crime — “two white men from Milford exploiting the Black community in New Haven,” the Independent suggested.

The Independent pointed out that On Scene Media’s real-time reporting can lend itself to errors — such as assuming gunshots when a car backfires — which could lead to unnecessary or disproportionate attention on communities where crime is more common, or assumed to be. Morse told the Independent that such mistakes were “growing pains” in the company’s early phases.

Four years later, Morse believes that the Independent article misrepresented his mission. When asked about the story’s emphasis on race, he pointed out that On Scene Media has had Black and Hispanic admins. He also stressed that his posts focus on New Haven because its police signals are not encrypted and because “New Haven is where a lot of bad things happen.”

“Ultimately, I’ll go wherever the first responders go,” Morse said.

Morse is quick to emphasize the civilian aspects of On Scene Media’s impacts — he claims to have aided in missing persons cases and to have reunited “about 500” dogs with their owners. 

But while On Scene Media’s Facebook page channels some of that community service energy, the company’s Instagram page is less serious. Aside from regular reels to inform followers about ongoing crimes, Morse has shared several posts and stories with no clear explanatory purpose.

In one of the account’s Instagram collections called “4 The Opps,” Morse has compiled several stories of flashy footage of cars he alleges belong to drug dealers. The phrase “Dealer Stalk!!” with the ninja and middle finger emojis captions one such story, which is complete with GIFs of surveillance cameras and the Marvel Comics character Venom.

“Trolling” drug dealers and other alleged criminals is a pastime for Morse — and one that he believes has compromised his safety. 

Morse was featured in a second documentary in April — journalist Andrew Callaghan’s 40-minute deep dive into the Connecticut Kia Boyz, a group of adolescent auto thieves. Callaghan portrays Morse as a sworn arbiter of justice akin to Batman. Callaghan filmed Kia Boyz members shouting “F**k Kevin Morse” and “F**k On Scene Media” into his microphone.

In a collection called “Australia,” Morse shares a screenshot of a direct message he received from an Australian Instagram account calling him “cringey” and saying “I hope you die.” Morse responded “Welcome!! from USA!!” with the middle finger emoji.

Morse takes such threats seriously. He asked that the News not disclose the location of his office, which is equipped with security cameras. He regularly films his videos wearing a bulletproof press vest, and his car — an auctioned-off police vehicle adorned with bloodstains and a Joker quote — is outfitted in law enforcement gear. Morse claims the On Scene Media-branded car was shot at when he was driving on Interstate 91 a year and a half ago.

“A lot of people don’t realize that he has a crew working with him,” Stula said. “We’re behind the scenes, so a lot of stuff they blame on him.”

Stula said that she has never experienced retaliation for her role in On Scene Media.

In conversation, Morse is quick to express his intent to minimize the backlash that his work could invite. When hiring admins, he said, he places trust in people he perceives to be levelheaded.

“If I make you an admin at this platform so you can post things, you also have access to our inbox,” Morse explained. “There’s been situations where I want to bring somebody in, but then I see how they react to a name that they were called or a name that I was called, and I’m like, there’s no way that they could be an admin, because they’re just going to lose it when something comes in.”

Morse considers himself to be skilled at engaging with online opponents, but On Scene Media’s Instagram tells a different story. 

After posting the screenshot of his exchange with the Australian account, Morse shared a graphic of Australia’s map, covered by GIFs including a mushroom cloud, a plane and a rotating American flag with the caption “On Scene Media Dropping Bombs In Australia!”

“Kevin is an absolute lunatic,” Yarbrough said. “I love how he talks, and overall, it’s different, right? Kevin’s just Kevin.”

Yarbrough said that he feels safer than Morse, and said that Morse’s “fear factor” comes from the “crazy” things he says online.

Asked whether he believes his “trolling” is beneficial, Morse pointed out that his Instagram account, unlike his Facebook page, is more a source of entertainment than a platform for news. Calling out “drug dealers and gang members” is his sense of humor, Morse said.

Between the constant fear of retaliation, the unending stream of calls and the intense and often violent stories to report, not to mention obligations to his children, Morse sleeps only a few hours each night. The high-intensity work and fast-paced lifestyle take their toll emotionally and physically.

“It’s a pretty lonely life,” Morse admitted. “There are some days where it’s really hard to get out of bed, because as much as everybody loves On Scene Media and all this attention that I get, I don’t forget about the call that I just had with the victim. These are the things that are going through my mind, not the clicks that I got and the views that this video got.” 

Morse describes himself as spiritual and empathetic; he finds it difficult to report on a high volume of traumatic situations without getting any closure.

Morse, Yarbrough and Stula each hinted that On Scene Media is looking to expand, but declined to explain how. Morse said he’d like to see the company grow to be the top crime news platform in Connecticut. 

When asked about his personal goals, Morse responded that he would be interested in writing an educational memoir. He plans to intersperse suggestions for substance use intervention among details about his life.

Morse often finds himself harnessing skills from his addiction recovery business while operating On Scene Media. He claims to have “turned” Kia Boyz affiliates from participants in crime to informants simply by talking to them over the phone.

“The streets — people get addicted to that lifestyle the same way [as substances],” Morse said.

New Haven County is made up of seven cities and 20 towns.