Five people were killed Thursday, June 28 at the Capital Gazette newspaper in my hometown of Annapolis, Maryland. I was at the Board of Education, working with our team to complete the canvassing duties for our primary election, just held on June 26.
Having heard a bullet once zing through my living room window, I wonder what the scene looked like at the paper. “Carnage” is what President Barack Obama would have called it, as he did when kids were massacred in Newtown, Connecticut.
Several weeks ago, I looked at the Journalists Memorial in the Newseum: a two-story glass memorial bears the names of 2,323 reporters, photographers and broadcasters who lost their lives reporting the news. Words can kill, and reporters die.
I have had many utterances, big drag-out pure cusses with some folks about what I write, what I wear, what I say. I have had a bullet come through my living room window.
Freedom is not free. Words cannot be freely expressed with expectations of zero outcomes. There are quite a few words that I say that incur wrath from others.
I always go back to the 2005 killing of Judge Joan Lefkow’s family members in Chicago. I Google her, and read her story over and over again. Perhaps you can glean knowledge from her family losses, look to see what causes these tragedies. How can we grow from these moments of senseless shootings? What can we do to circumvent tragedies like these?
Henrieese Roberts is a artist/vendor for Street Sense Media.
