Who has a connection

[barbtries]

however slight, to a mass shooting?

for myself, the Torrance, CA Gable House Bowl is around the corner from where I was born and raised. On my first date, we went bowling at Gable House. Later I bowled in a league there. it's been a fixture there as long as i can remember. it opened in 1959, when i turned 4 years old.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/05/us/torrance-bowling-alley-shooting/index.html

The first I learned of Sandy Hook was right here on DU, with a post by a DUer who was working with a man who had to leave the office abruptly after learning that his son was involved. I think I recall that his son was among the dead.

while growing up in that nice suburban house in Torrance CA i remember at about the age of 10 thinking I'll probably never know anyone who does murder or is murdered. I was wrong.

Looking at the TIME cover posted here just now got me thinking about it. How many are still unaffected? How many are not?

trying to nail down a definition for mass shooting led me to this article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/06/mass-shooting-incidents-probably-happened-closer-you-than-you-think/?noredirect=on

[ehrnst]

1. My neighbor was employed at Navy Yard when that shooting happened.

He was on travel, but his boss was killed, and his assistant was cornered by the gunman. He put a gun to her head, and she heard a click. She escaped while he reloaded.

A dear friend was a childhood friend of one of the journalists killed in the Annapolis shooting. I met her at his wedding to his husband.

[barbtries]

6. i thought that there would be many connections

i forgot to mention in the OP that my niece was a student at UCSB when the Isla Vista massacre occurred.

[LuckyCharms]

2. I live a few miles away from a terrible and

notorious mass shooting location.

I drive directly in front of the location about 2X per week and shop at at stand-alone specialty store (ie: not a mall) 500 feet away from the location about 1X per month.

[barbtries]

8. do you ever pass by

without thinking about the tragedy?

I still can't see an Infiniti without thinking about my daughter.

[LuckyCharms]

73. No, I always think about it when I am near. n/t

[Nay]

3. A friend of my best friend was shot and killed at one of the synagogue shootings in the

past 10 years. She was only visiting that synagogue for the day -- it wasn't her home synagogue.

[barbtries]

9. there always seems to be

some terrible irony associated.

[Nay]

19. Wait, I forgot another association. Two of my bosses at the time of the Virginia Tech

shooting had children attending class there that day. It was several hours before they could confirm that they were both still alive.

[barbtries]

20. i had a co-worker in the same position.

he's my boss now.

[Mrs. Overall]

4. My niece worked at a hotel near the Las Vegas concert shooting and knew one person (co-worker)

who was shot, but recovered.

She also had to make arrangements getting the belongings of the people who died and were staying at the hotel to their relatives.

It was incredibly stressful for her.

[barbtries]

10. I can hardly imagine how hard that must have been.

it illustrates how it's not just the immediate victims are affected by a crime like this. it's like ripples in a pond, the damage spreads far and wide.

[Mrs. Overall]

28. Barbtries, it is so kind of you to thoughtfully respond to each post in this thread.

Thank you.

[barbtries]

36. well you're welcome,

but it's also for a more self-serving purpose, to stoke the conversation generally. having admitted that I am keen to know how others affected process it. how we all deal with living in a place where it's an almost daily occurrence that someone decides to kill a bunch of innocent people. though some have reasons and some reasons we never get to know, none of the reasons can justify the act. And the damage spreads and spreads.

[pecosbob]

17. I used to drive up the street (Giles) behind the location of the event six days a week

Every day when I drove by I would look to see what event was going up next in that outdoor space. Now I don't look.

[barbtries]

21. Are events still being staged there?

they were sitting ducks.

[pecosbob]

24. Not the last time I looked, but given the location it's inevitable

unless it's permanently put aside. But I have not been by since last summer in any case...don't drive anymore. Now I walk to work.

[barbtries]

45. i hope you live close to work!

we're talking about Las Vegas right? the heat.

[snacker]

5. My connections

My brother-in-law's nephew was a professor at Virginia Tech. The nephew was away at a conference on the day of the shooting (unbeknownst to any of us at the time). The shooting happened in a one of the buildings where he taught.

My daughter lived a couple houses down from a police officer who was shot during the Sikh Temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

And like you, I remember the DU post about the man who worked with the father of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook. That post still haunts me.

[barbtries]

11. wow, that reminds me of a 3rd remote connection I have.

My current boss and former colleague's daughter was at VA Tech. They are a total Hokie (is that right?) family. he had to drive up there on the day to bring her home.

[FM123]

7. Parkland happened in my county.

[barbtries]

13. how are you?

I love the kids from Parkland. love 'em like they're my own, they were that inspiring in the wake of that travesty.

[FM123]

25. I am fine, you are so kind to ask....

I love those kids too, with all my heart. I think many many people do, one does not have to be from the same county, state or even country to feel that way. They are amazing & resilient & beautiful beacons of light. Not too long after the incident (sorry, I can't quite type that other word) I was visiting the Coral Springs museum where I saw a group of teens working on some kind of art project and we were asked not to disturb them - I was later told that they were some of the survivors doing art therapy to prepare for their return back to school. I can not even put in to words how my heart felt when I learned who they were and why they were there.

[barbtries]

32. just reading your post

brought tears to my eyes.

if we have a hope it is in the next generation.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. I know people who graduated from and worked at MSDHS. nt

[FM123]

29. I can only imagine their shock & sadness to have such a tragedy happen at their alma mater.

[barbtries]

34. i think these connections

make us feel it more keenly. I also think that as time goes on, more and more of us will have such connections. outer rings of the ripples in the pond of unnecessary tragedies that just keep on happening.

One of the victims in Thousand Oaks was a survivor of Las Vegas. The odds against that seem astronomical but it is true.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Not a mass shooting per se, but I "witnessed" a murder-suicide in my office building.

I didn't see it, but I heard the gunshots and I recall the anxiousness of hiding in my locked personal office for several minutes wondering if someone was going to burst in to our office suites and start shooting. It was unnerving to say the least.

[barbtries]

15. ohmigawd.

so once upon a time you would not have defaulted to the terror of a mass shooting.

that's so sad.

[Skidmore]

16. On November 1, 1991, I worked

at the University of Iowa and my daughter was a student. She had class on central campus that day. This was one of the early campus shootings in which a disgruntled graduate student shot six people, one survived, and then killed himself.

Cell phones were not yet available. It was almost two hours before she could get to a cellphone to let me know she was safe.

UI now has HawkAlert which can alert people by phone to danger anywhere in the community, including weather, and gives instructions for safety.

[barbtries]

18. I'm glad she was okay.

really wish we could gain some sanity here in the USA.

[Runningdawg]

22. Does it count when the government is involved?

Until the full list of victims from Waco was released we believed a woman my family fostered for 10 years and her 5 children had died there. They were outside the compound, sent to preach at another nearby church the day of the siege. They are still in the cult.

[barbtries]

23. well it counts that it was a mass casualty event

and you have a connection.

still in the cult. wow

[spinbaby]

26. A mass stabbing

The stabbing at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, PA five years ago. That’s my hometown and my high school. Close friends had children attending that school when the stabbing happened.

[barbtries]

31. that is so traumatic.

and so telling that nobody died in that attack. I had to look this up too, though I recalled it after I did.

maybe there will always be people out there with an unstoppable urge to murder lots of people at once. even in that case, it would be better and less lives lost if guns weren't so ubiquitous. assault guns should be out of the hands of ordinary citizens.

[Roland99]

27. Father of a former co-worker was one of the ones killed by Wesbecker, 1989

Louisville’s Standard Gravure shooting. Blamed on wesbecker not taking Prozac properly

[barbtries]

30. i had to look that one up.

i think people forget about the McDonald's mass shooting in san diego too.

sigh.

[Kablooie]

33. I, luckily, have no connection to any shootings so far but...

A work colleague I know was flying out of NY on the morning of 9/11.
The plane was delayed and by the time it was on the runway ready to take off, all planes in the country were grounded.
When this happened some middle eastern men in the plane became very agitated, started arguing with the crew and jumped off the plane.

I first heard this a few days after 911 and my colleague confirmed it to me later but I've never heard any news reports about this incident.

[barbtries]

37. WOW

I was at a writers conference in 2003 and a woman also attending had been on a plane with some of the terrorists prior to the event.

[barbtries]

62. you know what i just realized.

your colleague was probably very close to dying that day.

[renate]

65. wow. I can't believe that, with a plane full of witnesses, this wasn't more generally known

What an incredibly close call.

[Thunderbeast]

35. A friend of a friend was killed

in a shopping center killing.

[barbtries]

39. i'm so sorry.

my son's best friend was murdered at work and his boss seriously injured. this only 7 months before my daughter was killed. it wasn't a mass shooting, just another senseless day of gun violence in LA.

[Clarity2]

38. My husband's

coworker was at the Vegas shooting. He fortunately was not injured. But I'm sure the emotional trauma will last a lifetime.

[barbtries]

40. i think so.

the survivors of Las Vegas could start their own support groups, there are so many of them.

[Bradshaw3]

41. I used to ride the bus with a mass shooter

The guy who killed six people at Northern Illinois University regularly rode the same bus with me. The bus driver said he was the first one he picked up on those days. I had another one time near encounter with the Colorado theater shooter. Just shows how these are not rare occurences.

[barbtries]

46. wow.

my son rode the bus with 2 kids who were later convicted along with their mother of murdering their father and keeping his body in a freezer.

it's quite widespread. i think back to 10-year-old me feeling so secure that i would probably never know anyone who murdered someone or was murdered. ah, the innocence.

[Bradshaw3]

54. I grew up in a small town during the 60s

That was definitely a time of innocence, at least where I was. Rode our bikes everywhere, no abuse that we knew of anyway. I can't imagine what it's like growing up today.

[mercuryblues]

80. By the time I was 10, I knew I could never say that

My Aunt's ex stabbed and killed her new boyfriend. I really liked him - not the murderer. When he got out of prison for that murder, he made a bee-line straight to my aunt and shot her in the neck. She barely survived.

[Nay]

74. Oh, hell. I've just remembered a third connection, if we're going to talk about just

plain murderers/serial killers. It just goes to show how a person tries to shut it all out for sanity's sake.

I was a Florida State student when Ted Bundy murdered the 4 girls in the dorm and attacked a couple others in houses nearby. One of the houses where a girl was brutally attacked was about a quarter mile from where my roommate and I lived. It could easily have been us -- we lived in a frame house, lousy locks, flimsy windows, etc.

Every day, on my way to class, I walked past the frat house where Bundy was living, and I was, physically, his "type."

It was terrifying. He wasn't caught right away, so as far as anyone knew, he was going to kill and kill until he got caught. All the guns in town stores sold out instantly, and on Monday all the dogs were adopted out of the local shelter. Women who were living alone or with another woman either moved in with a bunch of friends, got their boyfriends and all their friends to move in with them, or fled to their hometowns all over the country.

[BeeBee]

42. I used to work in a drug store down the street from Columbine High School.

Many of our customers and employees were students there.

Also, I know at least two people who were at the Las Vegas concert shooting.

[barbtries]

48. since i started this thread

i realized i have a tangential connection to 3 mass murder events. I've never been a victim or known one personally. i know the places, i know people who did live through it and lost friends.

i've got a lot of hope invested in the 2020 election.

I was running away from an abusive boyfriend when Columbine happened, and spent the day holed up in a motel room watching it unfold. will never forget that one. or charlton heston immediately coming out and saying something like my cold dead hands.

[MarvinGardens]

43. Two.

A friend or acquaintance of my father's was wounded in a mass shooting that killed 4 and injured 6, in the late 1980s. The victims were all random. I was a teenager.

The daughter of a friend of my boss was killed in the Virginia Tech shooting.

[barbtries]

49. VA Tech touched so many people.

as seen in this thread.

it does not have to be this way.

[flotsam]

44. My mom lived a block over from Victoria Soto's childhood home which Ms. Soto visited often

She was a Sandy Hook teacher.You could see their front door from my mom's kitchen. My brother went to school with her half brother.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Leigh_Soto

[barbtries]

51. that's a pretty close connection.

she was beautiful.

[flotsam]

56. I moved to New Hampshire long before Sandy Hook

But that's what I heard-beautiful in and out.

[titaniumsalute]

47. Not connected to a mass shooting

but my sister was shot by her husband and killed. So there's that.

[barbtries]

50. omigawd i'm so sorry.

i ALWAYS think, what if there wasn't a gun? maybe he would have strangled her, or drowned or poisoned her. but the gun's there and all you have to do is pull the trigger.

my son lost a friend to suicide when he was 17. he didn't even know the 16-year-old kid was depressed. a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

again I am so sorry for your loss.

[titaniumsalute]

76. Thank you

It was a very odd story. Her husband, who is 10 years older, has Huntingtons disease. It makes you go kind of crazy. Basically Parkinsons but worse because you also lose mental capacity, have seizures, hallucinate. They don't know what happened. It was at around 3am and their kids were not home (thank god.)

But if the gun wasn't there I think there's a much better chance she is alive today.

[luvs2sing]

52. Not a mass shooting, but..

A high school friend, the older brother of one of my best friends in high school, was the victim of a serial killer. My cousin, who was a deputy sheriff, was following the car they were in but got called on another run.

And one of my best friends and her husband survived the WTC attacks. He also survived the 93 bombing.

[barbtries]

61. wow.

again with a tragic irony. the sheriff was there.

[cannabis_flower]

53. One of my high school classmates

Karla Plane Holcombe was shot and killed at the Sutherland Springs church shooting. I wasn't a good friend of hers but I think she was at a baby shower we had at my house for a friend of mine who got pregnant in high school. She was sweet and quiet.

[barbtries]

60. so sorry.

i think this was a case of a man who should never have had any gun in his possession and was related to his marriage.

it's so damn hard to fathom why 26 innocent people had to die because he was mad at his wife.

[CommonSenseMom]

55. Connections

I lived for 20 years directly north of Parkland - in West Boca - & wrote a humor column for The Parklander Magazine for a decade. I stopped after the shooting. Didn't want to 'find the funny' anymore on a monthly basis.

And, my son - who worked through UCF as a car valet - knew a kid who worked at Pulse & was killed.

Oh! And forgot - my dear friend's son was in his freshman year at VA Tech when that massacre happened. He was okay, but scared us all terribly.

[barbtries]

59. jeez.

do you ever feel like forrest gump? i do.

[bigbrother05]

57. A work colleague's 2 stepdaughters were killed in an Austin yogurt shop in '91

4 teen girls died, still considered unsolved. Her husband was a wreck for years afterward.

[barbtries]

58. I think I watched a program about this.

someone knows what happened. i hope a cold case unit is working on it.

my daughter was killed. i am convinced that it made my path easier that we knew who killed her. we didn't get justice in court, but came so much closer than this poor man left to wonder for so long, even to this day.

yep crime watch daily covered this just a couple months ago. I watch that channel all the time.

[Clash City Rocker]

63. My wife's stepmom is a doctor in Chicago

She was working at Mercy Hospital last year when a shooting (four dead) happened. She had to hide for awhile. Luckily, she wasn’t physically hurt, but one of her best friends was killed.

Also, I’ve been to the Gilroy Garlic Festival several times. I’ve since moved to the East Coast, but I was a little shook when I heard about the shooting.

Not a mass shooting, but a friend of mine was killed in a drive-by a couple years ago. He went to visit his cousins, not knowing that they had gotten involved in a gang. It was probably a case of mistaken identity. He was only 20 years old.

[barbtries]

64. i've always wanted to go to the garlic festival

but never made it yet.

the connections add up. since my daughter died I have many friends whose children were killed in drive by shootings, met them in grief counseling mostly. most of the time no one is caught and the victims are random. in LA gangs used to (likely still do) jump in new members by having them do a drive by.
causing a senseless death or several somehow proves their mettle? it was more honorable when they were literally jumped and had to physically defend themselves. Drive by shootings are cowardly. I'm sorry for your loss!
i moved to NC from LA in 2007 but still keep in touch with them. but I am not as up-to-date on the drive by situation.

[smirkymonkey]

66. I think for most of us, it will just be a matter of time before we can say we have a connection or

be a victim, unfortunately. The republicans will never do anything to curb gun violence in this country and we can count on these massacres happening with regular frequency.

[barbtries]

67. sadly, i agree

all the more important to vote them all out.

[Corgigal]

68. Mother Emanuel AME.

In Charleston S.C. We we invited to see Howard Dean speak there , so my whole family went to the church. Beautiful place and very welcoming.

I guess that's why the shooter chose it.

[SMC22307]

69. I worked about a mile from one of the DC sniper killings.

My nephew was in pre-school not far from one of the shootings. I'm not exactly sure what constitutes a "mass shooting," but that was a TERRIFYING time. 9/11 didn't scare me, but those random snipers terrorizing the DC area did.

[Nay]

75. OH JEEZUS, Barbtries, here's a 4th connection. I live in Va and these shooters terrorized

the area (from MD to DC to Richmond for weeks. Remember the shooting at the restaurant? Where the guy and his wife were walking in and he got shot in the stomach?

The EMT on the ambulance was one of my friends. He totally saved this guy's life. He was VERY experienced and an EMT teacher as well. He had the ambulance driver go so totally fast that they arrived at the hospital barely in time. And, of course, he was applying everything he knew to keep the guy alive until then. That victim was soooo lucky.

[SMC22307]

79. That was a horrible time. Glad the shooting victim survived...

and kudos to your friend and the other EMT staff.

[Ms. Toad]

70. Four - that I can think of.

Dayton - a friend's cousin's friend was one of those killed (and my friend would have been there but for staying home to tend to a sick cat)

Virginia Tech - our Church has its annual gathering there occasionally (at least one before & one after)

Not shootings - but in a similar vein:

9/11 - my cousin worked at the WTC, and was in a plane looking back at the WTC when the first plane hit

1993 WTC truck bombing - my cousin (same one) was to start work there the day of the bombing.

[kwassa]

71. Kent State

I was in my senior year of high school in Oberlin when it happened, about 60 miles away.

Our student council president of the previous year went to Kent, and was later indicted by an Ohio grand jury, though he wasn't even on campus that day.

My girlfriend went to Kent the following year. I visited, and saw the statue with the bullet holes in it. The site of the killings overall is very undramatic.

[barbtries]

84. what was he indicted for?

was he convicted?

[shanti]

72. Childhood friend of my son

was killed in Las Vegas.

[Hoyt]

77. 1999, was in same building where shooter killed 9 people and then disappeared. Building was locked

down and heavily armed police were running all over the place, going office to office looking for him.

Although I was on upper floor, policeman ran in during the search yelling at me with his gun drawn, "Look I work here." I guess they had no choice. Anyway, it was a wild day, they searched everyone's car when we could finally leave. Finally, surrounded the guy in the suburbs -- somehow he got out -- where he shot himself.

I walked by that day trading office every day going to work. It was kind of weird walking by there afterwards.

Summary from NYT:

"After bludgeoning his wife and two children to death with a hammer, and just eight hours before slaughtering nine people in the brokerage houses where he traded, Mark O. Barton typed a chilling confession on his computer and warned that he planned to live just long enough to kill ''the people that greedily sought my destruction.''

"The letter, which Mr. Barton apparently wrote near sunrise on Thursday and then left in the Stockbridge, Ga., apartment where he had killed his family, suggested that he was tortured by estrangement from his wife, by financial troubles and by unexplained fears that he said had been ''transferred from my father to me and from me to my son.''"

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/31/us/shootings-in-atlanta-the-overview-killer-confessed-in-a-letter-spiked-with-rage.html


I remember the guy that ran the company where I worked, saw all the SWAT people running on the grounds. The little pissant ran out to his car and left leaving about 150 of us in the office. Didn't say a thing to others in the office.

[barbtries]

81. that is hectic.

and terrifying.

[ego_nation]

78. Experienced a false alarm, similar to Times Square ...

worked for a large corporation and sounds from construction equipment being used on the building was mistaken for gun fire. Whole building went into lockdown and everyone took it seriously as there was no reason to think it was a false alarm. A bunch of us were locked into a VP’s office, filing cabinets were stacked in front of the stairwell doors. I also remember someone looking up info on their phone and telling everyone two people were dead, only to then say that they were looking at a story for a different shooting. It was chaos. At the end of the day, everyone is ok, but we’ve reached the point of normalcy with this that we don’t question the possibility of its occurrence.

[barbtries]

82. yeah.

i mean once upon a time that would have been funny.
when my son was at ECU they had a lockdown scare. turned out the guy who was reported had an umbrella in his backpack.
a few years ago someone called in that they had seen what might be a bomb on the freeway. my 1/2 hr drive home from work that day took 2 hours. they closed the entire freeway.

it was a backpack.

so yesterday a guy with trump stickers all over his vehicle, guns and ammunition in his car, hanging out near an immigrant center in El Paso was detained in El Paso and then let go.

things do not make sense.,.

[GulfCoast66]

83. I live in the Orlando Area. Many of my co-workers are active in the LGBT community.

So yeah. Several connections. You can’t kill 50 people at a popular gay club and injure many more and not have it touch lots of people.

It still is affecting this community. But there is no more loving a community in the South.

Get 30 miles away...not so much.