On October 1st, a 26 year-old student at Umpqua Community College entered the university and opened fire. I will not be mentioning his name in this article because I refuse to give him the fame he hoped for.
He killed nine people before taking his own life. These victims include Lucero Alcaraz, Treven Taylor Anspach, Rebecka Ann Carnes, Quinn Glen Cooper, Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, Lucas Eibel, Jason Dale Johnson, Lawrence Levine, and Sarena Dawn Moore. Our prayers are with all of their families and the families of the injured in the wake of this tragedy. As Steven Colbert said in his opening monologue the day following the mass shooting, “I don’t know what to do or say."
As a result of my horror and sadness upon hearing of yet another mass shooting, I’ve forced myself to do as much research as I could to try to make some sense of it. All that I have found, however, is more questions. Why is the media ignoring the fact that the majority of the victims were killed because of their religion? Is it because that religion is Christianity? Are we ignoring the bravery and martyrdom of these young men and women because Christianity is no longer the most popular religion in the media? Are we so used to setting Christians as the villains that we don’t know what do to once they are the victims? Also, could there have been a way to prevent this great loss of life that has yet to be discussed?
Now before I proceed, I know that I do not have any answers. The only things I can contribute are my prayers. What is discussed in this article is merely composed of thoughts that went through my head during this time and while conducting my research.
“We don’t know why the person did what he did," said President Obama in his speech following the mass shooting. But don’t we? Not once did President Obama mention the fact that the gunman targeted Christians.
The gunman was a man who hated organized religion. According to witnesses, he ordered all religious individuals in the classroom to stand. Then he’d go to them one by one and ask, “Are you a Christian?” When they would confirm, he would say, “Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second.” He maimed those who were not Christians. Now, after the shooter killed one affirmed Christian, the others could have vehemently denied their faith and possibly survived. But they all proclaimed their love for God anyway, with a gun aimed straight at them.
According to some witnesses, one woman even said to her attacker, “I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through” and still he shot her. These people were able to be so brave and forgiving and compassionate even in the face of death.
None of this being focused on in the news. Perhaps if the victims were of a different faith, one more sympathized with by the media, we’d hear a bit more of this stoic faith. Perhaps not. It won’t be forgotten by me.
In several news clips regarding this tragedy, first responders were lauded for their haste; any extra time and more lives would have been lost. And this is true; those policemen are heroes. The police arrived six minutes after the 911 call was placed, and within two minutes of their arrival the gunman was dead and it was over.
One victim’s father, though, questioned, “Why on earth he had that much time to kill that many people without a response.” This wasn’t a slight against the police, I think, but a reference to another relatively unreported aspect of this event. What if there had been someone armed at the scene from the moment it started? As the saying goes, when seconds count, the police are minutes away. Umpqua Community College voted against armed security only a year ago, as a part of massive cuts to security staff. There was only one guard on campus during the shooting, unarmed and relatively unable to be of any help. A former guard at the university also said that the lockdown procedures put in practice are not effective at all. I’m not about to enter the gun-control argument at this point in time, but it seems obvious to me that these students needed better protection that was not provided them by the university.
I think, when it comes to tragedies like these, people are either unwilling to talk about anything, or want to immediately politicize the event to their liking. It was my intent in this article to walk the line, and just talk about the things I noticed. My heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives that day, and I pray that incidents like these never happen again.
