The shock and trauma of covering a tragedy in your hometown
I've spent the last few days trying to make sense of something that — no matter how much I talk about it, dissect it, and question it — doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make sense that one minute, people are getting ready for a holiday banquet, and the next, they're under siege. It doesn't make sense that someone can build pipe bombs in their garage, and their neighbors have no idea that deadly weapons are just a few feet away from where their children play. It doesn't make sense that a person who everyone says never made any waves could be responsible for the murder of more than a dozen co-workers in the span of 30 seconds. And, for me personally, it really doesn't make sense that it all happened 10 miles away from my hometown.
Covering the San Bernardino shooting has been a surreal experience for me. I grew up in nearby Redlands. Unless you also live in Southern California, or love Abraham Lincoln, summer music festivals, and liberal arts universities, you had probably never heard of Redlands until police announced that they were raiding a house here linked to the San Bernardino shooting suspects. Redlands is the Jewel of the Inland Empire with its beautiful Victorian homes, historical landmarks like Kimberly Crest, and lots and lots of trees. Never in a million years did I think it would be known as the home base for suspected terrorists.
Writing about a major news event in a place you know intimately is bizarre. When I wrote about the attacks in Charleston and Paris, I relied heavily on accounts from other news outlets who had reporters on the ground in those places. On Wednesday, I knew firsthand where everything was going down; I didn't need NBC to tell me where the raid was taking place — just by hearing the address, I instantly knew it was right around the corner from the old Redlands Daily Facts building, where I worked during my first job out of college.
It was quite frustrating listening to the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the other channels I flipped between on Wednesday. People who drove by San Bernardino once on their way to Palm Springs suddenly knew everything about the city's inhabitants. Others started speculating about bullying that might have caused the gunmen to snap. Don't even get me started on the conspiracy theories I read in internet comment sections, or the misspelled "San Bernadino" hashtag used by some of the biggest media organizations in the world. Under normal circumstances, I would wince when I saw a typo in someone's tweet, feeling pangs of sympathy because I know how easy it can be to make a mistake as breaking news unfolds. But this time, I wasn't cutting anyone any slack. I wanted this tragedy in my backyard to be covered with the utmost professionalism and respect.
Of course, I couldn't rant about all of these things. As I was texting people for updates on what was happening at the suspects' home and chatting on Facebook with a friend whose girlfriend was still on lockdown, I wrote and posted all the new information I could find to the Speed Reads section of this website. Since I was hearing so many rumors, I had to make sure I didn't let any details slip in that weren't verified, and I mostly had to keep my emotions to myself. It was hard. Throughout the night, depending on the news I was hearing, I wavered back and forth between being angry, horrified, sad, and scared.
Although I'm incredibly fortunate to have not lost any friends in the shooting, my sense of security has been shattered. Growing up, Redlands really was like a bubble; we could head to Los Angeles, the beach, the mountains, or the desert for the day, then return to our cozy little town. We always thought if something bad was going to happen, it would be in L.A., because what could possibly happen in our safe haven? Yes, we were smack dab in the middle of busy Southern California, but we had low crime rates, neighbors who looked out for one another, and traditions that brought us together as a community.
Obviously, our collective naïveté is now showing. It's clear times have changed.
It still doesn't feel real, no matter how many times I hear Anderson Cooper talk about Redlands on CNN. Mass shootings aren't supposed to happen here, and the perpetrators certainly aren't supposed to live in the same town you grew up in. Friends in Europe aren't supposed to call you because your charming little town is now getting international attention for all the wrong reasons.
On Wednesday, as I texted with friends to make sure they were safe and talked to my family about the unfolding events, I repeated over and over, "It doesn't make sense." There is never any reason for a mass shooting. You can't explain, excuse, or justify the fact that multiple lives are extinguished in an instant. All you can do is ask "why" and, maybe more importantly, "how." How can this happen? How can this keep happening?
It doesn't make sense.