United States of Bloodshed & Retribution
I'm horrified and so saddened by the mass shooting yesterday at Binghamton's American Civic Association, an immigrant and refugee services center (ACA website). The alleged gunman, Jiverly Wong, was a Vietnamese immigrant who'd recently lost his "per diem" job at a nearby Shop-Vac; he was thought to be "disgruntled because he'd been recently fired and felt "looked down upon" because of his broken English, Binghamton's city police chief told Newsday on Saturday."
As I thought of the victims and survivors from countries like Russia, China, Kurdistan and Laos, many resettled here after escaping "dangerous conditions" in their home countries, my heart ached at the thought that they were now victims of our nonsensical culture of violence - most coverage of this tragedy reminds us that nationwide this is the fifth mass shooting in one month. As I started reading about these other shootings, I dismayingly found that each article pushed me to another story of yet another shooting...there's barely a pattern here other than the preponderance of premeditation and male shooters - but I keep finding these inklings of economic crises triggers and come away with the renewed impression that places we've long considered safe just aren't. Fullstop.
In March 2009:
- a North Carolina man killed 8 patients and nurses at a rural nursing home specializing in the care of patients with Alzheimer's Disease. The majority of the patients were elderly women.
- an Alabama man killed 10 people in 2 small towns, including 6 adults and kids in their or their neighbors' homes.
- a man killed his family and himself at home outside Santa Clara, CA. At least 3 victims were kids; 2 of them under 10.
- a man killed four people at a birthday party in Miami, including one teen and one elderly woman, blaming them for his estranged wife leaving him.
Some of these stories are of extreme yet too common domestic violence finales; in others it's not clear what set off the shooter and how he targeted his victims.
These four stories were compared to three more in California, Illinois and Missouri. In California in November, a recently laid-off worker went to his office and killed three former co-workers in an attempt at "retribution against his former employer." In Illinois, the shooter killed a pastor in church; mentioned in passing was that the assailant's family's business where he'd worked had been sold at auction the prior fall. The pastor deflected the first bullet with his Bible before being killed. And a Missouri woman was killed by her ex-boyfriend last November at the health clinic where she worked.
Sites: churches, nursing homes, birthday parties, private homes. Shooters: displaced workers and violent ex-partners. Victims: elderly, sick, women and children. There's no class or geographic patterns here, but what comes up again and again for me is the ambush by disgruntled men who have snapped over the loss of control, whether it was over a woman or their livelihood.
These stories really shake me, in part because I've worked with despondent victims of economic crisis. After September 11, I spent several years at a non-profit providing loans and grants to small business owners in Lower Manhattan, individuals trying to rebuild their lives, companies and stores. Anger, outrage, loss, passion, tears - we might come across all in a day's work, and we had a few clients who were extremely irate over our decisions concerning their financial assistance. It was a very intimate yet powerful role many of us played (on behalf of public and private donors), and I always worried that we didn't lock the door to our offices, which were directly in front of the elevators in some nondescript building downtown. Worse, our offices were semi-protected by a decorative wall behind the reception desk, leaving our receptionist, a wonderful woman transitioning from welfare to work, as the sole line of "defense" should any business owner show up filled with righteous indignation. Fortunately, we never arrived this outcome, but these stories always leave me imagining such worst case scenarios.
Our unemployment rate is over 8%, guns are extremely easy to get, and economic rage is widespread and unfocused. My thoughts and prayers are with the Binghamton families and survivors, and for all of us trying to pick up the pieces of our lives in this moment.
(Photo of VA Tech candelight vigil by nrbelex. The shootings at VA Tech were the worst in US history.)
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