A little after 7 p.m. last Friday, I was in Mount Vernon, the next town over from Burlington, going out to dinner with my cousins before coming back to Seattle for school.
As we parked outside the restaurant, we saw three police cars zoom by on the freeway. And then another three. Stunned, we checked the Skagit Breaking News page on Facebook where people submit news stories. Nothing.
We continued on inside and sat down to eat. My aunt called my cousin and asked where we were. We said we were in Mount Vernon.
It was then that she told us that the mall was being evacuated.
I didn’t think much of this. Nonchalantly, I made a comment that it was most likely a bomb threat like the one I remember from my junior year of high school. Even that seemed more likely than a mass shooting.
Afterward, my cousin decided to check Facebook once more to see if anyone had posted any updates on what was going on at the mall.
“It’s a shooting,” she said as I felt my stomach drop.
I quickly pulled my phone out and, sure enough, the page confirmed there had indeed been a shooting at the mall.
But this wasn’t just any mall. It was my mall, the mall I’d grown up going to. This just didn’t seem like it could be happening. A shooting? In my tiny hometown? How?
I couldn’t finish eating comfortably because I still couldn’t fathom the news. On our way home we drove past the mall on the freeway and the image was one I’m sure will never leave me.
There were so many police cars with their flashing red and blue lights outside Macy’s where the shooting had taken place. I felt sick as I recounted the hundreds of times I’d set foot into that building. That could have been me.
Once I was home, I recounted what I’d seen to my mother. I suddenly felt my eyes well up with tears, and I couldn’t quite understand why I was reacting this way. It felt odd wanting to cry when this certainly wasn’t the first mass shooting I’d heard of. But knowing it happened in my hometown really struck me.
We sat on the couch in silent fear as images of our mall were shown all over the news. It felt bizarre knowing that people had died in the very same place I’d been with my mom only two weeks before.
People on my social media feed were not focused on the fact that innocent people had died in the face of gun violence. Instead, many were blaming entire races and religions.
Tragic events should bring communities closer, not further apart.
Unfortunately, events like this aren’t rare — it seems like every week there’s another violent event involving guns happening somewhere around the world. It’s easy to become desensitzed to events like this.
Sure, we send out a #PrayingFor tweet, but after that we get on with our daily lives. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve done this all too often. But when it happens so close to home, it feels different.
Even if you aren’t from Burlington, Seattle is still pretty close to where this devastating event took place. This should matter to everyone.
“We don’t have the answer to this violence, but I do know this: Passivity in the face of this scourge of violence is unacceptable,” Gov. Jay Inslee said after the shooting. “Inaction in the face of this violence is unacceptable.”
When you hear about shootings happening around the world, they can be easy to ignore because they’re so far away. But last Friday’s shooting happened an hour away from Seattle. You can’t ignore that.
So what do we do? Truthfully, I wish I had the answers to this. Do we focus on changing gun laws? Focus on mental health issues? A combination of both? There is no easy solution, but what I do know is that we can’t let this become a common occurrence in our state, or anywhere else for that matter.
I know it’s uncomfortable to talk about these issues openly, but if we don’t do it, then who will?
Reach writer Elizabeth Alvarado at opinion@uwdaily.com. Twitter: @idkelizabeth
