Deadly Disconnection

I Wonder

Quite frequently I find myself wondering what kinds of things happen in a person's life to make them snap. For the last several months I have been struggling with this more than usual. My unrest was triggered as I sat numb, watching breaking news from one of my neighboring cities, Kirkwood. An armed gunman had shot a police officer just outside of City Hall and after making His way inside began shooting select individuals inside City Hall.

By the end of the night 7 people had been shot (including the gunman), 6 of them died, one of them critically injured and fighting for his life.

During the aftermath stories of a troubled individual surfaced. The shooter had a history of disrupting City Council Meetings. However friends and family of the shooter painted a different picture. They claimed that the shooter felt that he was being victimized by the City Officials. City Officials denied any such harassment. One thing is clear, the injustice was very real to the shooter, and he reacted by attacking back.

I haven't mentioned any names or major details but the information is available you can Google "Kirkwood City Hall Shooting" and I have included news url's in the supporting links.

My concern is that this incident is not unique, and I can't help but feel that it could have been avoided. More importantly I am hoping that people are paying attention. As a community we have become so disconnected that we conduct business as usual and never once stop to think about what kind of effect our actions will have on people.

In no way whatsoever am I about to suggest that this shooter or any perpetrator of any violent crime is justified, but what I am about to suggest is that it is possible that some of these events could be prevented with a little bit of personal attention. (I'll come back to this in a minute.)

The shooting reminded me of two separate events that I personally witnessed, both were non-fatal but they were equally brutal in the way they were carried out, and I cant help but see the similarities between these events and the Kirkwood City Hall Shooting.

A Young Assassin

The first event happened just a few years ago. I was working with an inner city youth ministry. On occasion we would play games or use props to get the point of our lesson across. We had been playing a game that involved the use of a Nerf Gun. (It fired little round sponge balls.) After we finished with the lesson we gathered around in a circle to discussed what we learned, as usual.

I noticed one of my younger kids collecting all of the Nerf Balls, I didn't think too much of it as he was always my little helper, often staying behind to talk or help me clean up. Several minutes later, as we all sat laughing and talking, we were startled as my young friend stepped up armed with the Nerf Gun and unloaded every last sponge bullet into the face of one of the older kids sitting in the circle. I'll never forget the glazed over disconnected look he had in his eyes. We all stood there in disbelief as we tried to figure out what had just happened. Thank God, it was only sponges and no was hurt.

After making the kid apologize, I took both kids to the side to find out what was going on. The older kid had no idea why the little guy went postal on him. After talking for a while, it was revealed that the older kid and a friend used to harass and terrorize the kid when he was younger and he never forgot it, whereas the older kid had, until that moment. Fortunately it ended with hugs, the older kid became more aware of his actions and the parents of the younger kid getting him some counseling.

A Bullies Brutal Beating

The second event was a bit more tragic. It took place more than twenty years ago. My siblings and I were walking home from school. Rita (not her real name) one of the school tomboys, was picking on people as she normally did. Most of the time she would terrorize the younger and smaller kids, and most of the time she went unchallenged as she was two and a half times taller and bigger than most of us.

She must have been feeling pretty good that day, because she decided to pick on someone her own age. She began picking on this guy Johnny (not his real name.) She began saying things to him and went to push him, when Johnny, who was much smaller went all Bruce Lee on Rita. He beat her like she had stole something. We stood there in shock as this always quiet almost invisible kid, half of Rita's size reduced her to a bloody blubbering baby who ran home crying. That was the end of Rita's reign of terror. She showed up at school the next week dressed like and acting like a young lady.

After a little digging, it was discovered that Rita's tormenting had pushed Johnny over the edge. He was an adopted Native American kid, whose parents didn't treat him all that great and to make matters worse he had just discovered that he had a form of leukemia. Not only was his life crappy but it was going to be short.

Johnny, the Kirkwood shooter and the young kid in my first story, all had something in common. They were carrying the combined weight of different stressors, and the people who were interacting with them were all clueless to those stressors and it would not be unfair to say that they probably did not care.

Everyday we interact with different people never knowing what is really going on with them, and most of the time we don't really care what is going on with them, we've got our hands full with our own problems right?

The days following the Kirkwood shooting I heard several different news stories where the City attorneys proclaimed their innocence in regard to harassing the shooter, they provided evidence and paperwork that justified their claim, but yet and still it doesn't reverse any of the damage or erase the fact that it felt to the shooter that he was being victimized.

I don't have all the answers, but I do know this; at some point we are going to have to stop doing business as usual, and start seeing people. At some point we need to be more mindful of our actions and the possibility that the people with whom we are interacting, just might be going through something. At some point we need to realize that taking the time to see someone, can be the best thing we can do to protect ourselves, and in fact just might save our life!