LA Weekly

Words can't express the sorrow and horror and the fact that it happend just days before the anniversary of Columbine only makes it that much more depressing. Deepest sympathies to the victims, their families, the school and our country. Very near the top of the white house's statement was a defense of our country's easy access to guns -- a spokesperson saying that while the president defends the right to bear arms, he thinks it should be borne lawfully. Good one, guys. The fact that the white house feels the need to defend plentiful guns n ammo for everyone right after this tragedy is a fine reminder of the sickening place our culture is at. Thanks for that. It's an obvious thing to do, but it's really hard not to view this in context of the overall degradation of our culture, you know movies like Saw, etc., video games that try to top each other for gore and violence. That kind of thing. Sad stuff.

Here's what my colleague, Rena, wrote about her surreal experience of this tragedy.

At 8:30am Monday morning, on the way to photograph a suspected serial killer at L.A.’s Criminal Justice building, I heard an NPR reporter say that one person was killed by gunfire at Virginia Tech, and that the assailant hadn’t been found.

One person?  I thought to myself.  It was probably a crime of passion. Someone got mad. Someone cheated on someone else, someone stole their roommate’s guitar.  Maybe there was a kid on too much PCP cramming for finals.  Then the reporter said the shooting had happened a day after a campus bomb threat, and that the students were fleeing their classes in panic.

Those lucky slackers, I thought.  I used to love milking bomb threats in college—they were consistently a perfect excuse to play hooky.

Inside the People vs. Chester Turner courtroom, I waited around to take a fetching portrait of a monster.  As he was walked in, I searched for a good angle, and observed the defense lawyer smile with his client, laugh with him, pat him on the back.  Such is the occupation of a Criminal Defense Attorney.  I rolled my eyes quietly.

On the elevator ride down I got a call from my father.  “Did you hear about Viriginia Tech?  Ten students were killed.”  “Ten?”   I asked, “I thought it was one.  What happened to the gunman?”  “They haven’t found him,” Dad said.  “I can’t believe it but they haven’t found him yet.”

Down on the lobby patio I managed to join the mob of paparazzi snapping pictures of Phil Spector waltzing slowly up from the parking lot for his first day of trial.  I sneaked down the ramp past the large media group to get a closer look, which caused the other photographers to get a little grumpy.

“Hey you, lady, you can’t go down there!”  I ignored them.  Eventually it progressed to, “You bitch!  Get the fuck out of the way!”  I walked back up and told them to relax.  A woman beside me asked what the “crazy looking white guy” was on trial for.  “Murder,” I replied.

Back at the office around 11am, I opened my gmail account and saw a message from a friend. “VIRGINIA TECH!  18 people dead!”  I hit reply.  “18?  I thought it was 10.” I clicked on the ABCNEWS.com link that was forwarded to me, and saw SWAT Team members carrying injured students to emergency vehicles.  I wrote again.  “WTF is goin on over there?  This has been happening since 8:30 in the morning!  It’s only one guy, right?”

Getting down to hard work, I sorted though images of my Saturday night at the drive-in movie theater seeing Grindhouse, “A great movie,” I told my co-worker, “because it’s so over-the-top violent.”

At 11:45am I clicked the Refresh button on my browser window.  “29 People Confirmed Dead.”  Then my face started to get hot.  I saw more and more photos of limp students being haphazardly rushed out of their dormitory, hoisted up by their wrists and ankles.  I saw panicked looks on the face of policemen. Moisture stung my eyes and clouded my glasses.  I went outside to have a smoke because I needed to calm down and it’s embarrassing to cry at work.

Once back in my office, I stared at my mouse pointer sitting poised for action on that terrible button.  I didn’t really want to, but I clicked on Refresh again.  “33 people confirmed dead at Virginia Tech.  Worst Shooting Rampage in United States History. Gunman Dead, Motive Unclear.”

Then the hot tears let loose.  I wish I could just learn when to stop clicking.

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