First up - I truly don’t know which forum this should go in. After consideration, I decided that the Pit is as good a place as any. Mods, as always, should feel free to move.
Second - many years ago, I was at school during a shooting. I don’t know why yesterday’s shooting is the one that has wrecked me, but I can’t stop crying. I’m going to set out a brief account here, because I want people to know what it’s like to be there. No one died, so I guess we were the lucky ones.
I worked at my school’s front desk and switchboard part-time in high school. I was on campus one day while students and parents were setting up for a school function. Ribbons on light posts, roll out the carpet, that sort of thing. Suddenly I could hear gunfire and screaming at the front gate. I was under the desk before I even thought about it.
At this time, Columbine hadn’t happened, and school shootings weren’t anything we prepared for. They also weren’t anything that police departments or dispatchers prepared for. Cell phones were just starting to be available, but most people did not have one. This meant that I, at the switchboard, was the primary way anyone there was going to be able to call for help.
Under the desk, I grabbed the phone, fumbled around over my head and dialed 911. When the dispatcher answered, I told her that someone was shooting at my school. She did not believe me. She asked me if I was sure I was at school. Yes, I was really sure. Then, was I sure I wasn’t at a church. Yes, still at school. Then she asked questions like, is anyone injured, what type of gun, who is the shooter. In reply, I could only say “people are screaming and crying but I’m under a desk. I have no safe way to know anything about injuries. It sounds like a shotgun, but I can’t see it. I’m under a desk. I cannot see the shooter.”
The police came eventually. Dispatch was arguing with me because the shooter went to multiple locations. She picked our school just because she was driving by and happened to see it. After stopping briefly, she left and went somewhere else. Maybe she left because she could hear sirens? I don’t really know. Time telescoped and those minutes were among the very longest of my life.
I will never forget that feeling of being trapped with no recourse, of having no idea what was happening or why, of hearing shots and screams, and the crying afterwards. Kids calling for their parents. Layered on top of all of that was the horrific feeling of not being believed, of having to beg for help. The feeling of not knowing if help was going to come or not.
In the present, I always know where the exits are. I know my paths out. I usually know where I could hide. And I keep track of what I can use to fight. I’ve tried to teach the kids the same things without making them paranoid. They mostly seem to humor me, so I suspect I haven’t gone overboard.
Today we live in a world where elementary kids carry cell phones so that they can call for help. My nieces and my kids both had SWAT officers come to their schools and tell them how to deal with a shooter if one came to their school. Watching my 6 year old niece demonstrating weaving while she ran was awful.
What the fuck is wrong with us?
