Yesterday, something horrible happened. A person shot and killed 20 small children at an elementary school and at least five adults as well. (I keep hearing different numbers, so pardon any inaccuracy).
Every time something like this happens, I get sucked into the media frenzy surrounding it, much like most other people I know. But this time I'm just angry. I can't watch, can't look. I don't want to know. I just want to be mad.
Plus, I refuse to give the shooter the notoriety he was certainly hoping to get, at least in my mind.
Instead, I want the media to please, please, please change tactics. Quietly, respectfully, tell us about the victims, after a time has passed. Let their families mourn in peace for a while and then bring us THEIR stories. Have THEIR names and faces be the ones we remember. Not the shooter's. Not ever the shooter, ever again.
The (thankfully fatality-free, thanks to a hero by the name of Rich Agundez) shooting at my high school in 2001 occurred TWO WEEKS after another, multiple-fatality shooting in the same district. Why do you think that happened?? Why do you think this shooting in CT occurred only a few days after the mall shooting in OR?
Do what else we, as a society, need to do. But take away the fame and the haunting "glory" that accompanies this.
Please. I beg you.
I think they are giving more notice to the victims than the shooter in more recent shootings (I HATE to have to pluralize that). But in the last couple, I didn't see a photo or even hear the shooter's name until the next day or later.
ReplyDelete(Also, these incidents always make me think of that day when I huddled with you in the supply room between two classrooms, waiting for the SWAT team to tell us we were safe. Scariest time of my life!)