TX - 26 dead, 20 injured in church shooting, Sutherland Springs, 5 Nov 2017 #2

[kittythehare]

I like the idea of the permanent memorial, but I also think of how traumatizing it may be for some to see that building, let alone have to walk or drive past it to get to their new building every Sunday. Having it razed may be the only way for healing to begin for some.

My daughter went to church with her Grandma this morning and she said she was nervous to begin with, and then one of the congregants went on the stage to playfully tuck in the pastor's shirt and she said she started to feel panic because she was worried he was going to do something bad.

I can't believe this world we live in sometimes.

It is awful and its set to continue with or without guns, in every country on the planet..
Mindless violence. Lives extinguished on a whim.. nothing to be gained by the killing.. pointless, fruitless..
It is, of course, up to the relatives of the deceased..
In London, following the Grenfell tower fire , a debate occurred on how to deal with the remainder of the building, which still housed the remains of the deceased from the top floors.. possibly never to be identified..

Some people wanted the building to be preserved in its current state, having been made safe. As a reminder.
an ugly building, yet homed many happy families, in life and still, in death.. i liked that notion, especially after the truth emerged about the cladding etc..

How do we remember and how do we forget?

 

[CARIIS]

What they did with the church was really awesome - it should stay that way.

You cant bulldoze the past away - for those it
will be healing to they can go there

For those think it is not a good idea for them
to do - they can stay away

really did a touching job on it - quite moving

 

[JaneEyre]

A town that size will never forget. Even if they leave nothing there to mark the spot, people will still feel it for decades when they drive by that spot. I can imagine how excruciating that would be.

We had a smaller tragedy in our town of 600 people in the 70s. I was a baby, and although no one talks about it much, every time I drive by the spot in the field on the edge of town where the little girl was buried by the boy who killed her, I think about it.

The family did a couple of things to try to deal with it. They had her real burial in the next town so they would not live across the street from her grave, but that wasn't enough. Small town like that, every scene of the story was a reminder - the park in the center of town where she was kidnapped, the street he was living on at the time, the grove of trees where he beat himself up to make it look like he had tried to save her from other kidnappers, and the field where she was found. All of these places within blocks of each other were constant reminders. Probably also seeing the searchers who found her every day was painful. They didn't move far, but they did eventually move to the next town, and I suspect it was to get away from the constant reminders.

While we may see a place that needs a memorial, they may see a place that needs to be wiped clean just to get on with life.

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[JaneEyre]

What they did with the church was really awesome - it should stay that way.

You cant bulldoze the past away - for those it
will be healing to they can go there

For those think it is not a good idea for them
to do - they can stay away

really did a touching job on it - quite moving

You can't stay away in a town that size. While we see a beautiful memorial (and, my God, those chairs are beautiful like that), these are people with PTSD - an entire town - and it may not be what's best for their psyche. This town needs to heal, and for many people, observing death dates, seeing reminders daily of the tragedy that changed their town, their lives, is going to trigger some.

We are not all the same. Some people observe death dates. I'm not one of them. It causes me more pain to concentrate on losses on the dates they happened. These people will be carrying that pain the rest of their lives as it is. Putting up reminders will not be a good thing for everyone. That's why people move to new houses and towns after tragedies. And many therapists will recommend such changes when people experience tragedy, so they can get on with their lives. They do not recommend hanging onto the pain with reminders.

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[kittythehare]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ilation-other-mental-health-issues/853131001/

The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year's goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

WHOA

 

[Doghairrules]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...0e4b05673aa5a04f0?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

It is unclear whether the memorial will be permanent, or whether the building will be razed.

More beautiful photographs.. I too hope they will retain the building as a permanent memorial.
Its beautiful.

They did a really nice job transforming the sanctuary and honoring the victims. I can’t imagine the effort that took, with everything else this town had to deal with last week.


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[rosemadderlake]

What do you do with the site of a mass shooting?

What a community chooses often says far more about the people and the place than about the crime.

Ten days after a gunman burst into the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Pennsylvania in the fall of 2006, killing five girls and injuring others, the local Amish community tore down the building. The spot soon became indistinguishable from the pastureland around it.

Months later, in the January cold, men from the community began building a new schoolhouse a few hundred yards away. There are no markers, no physical memorials of the tragedy that took place nearby.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...153ad47b549_story.html?utm_term=.d680acb5720d

---
I was humbled by the resolve of the Amish community when they tore down the school house just days after that tragic mass shooting. And, sites of mass killings have been handled in various different ways.

I know I would have a very difficult time going back to a place that symbolized such unimaginable terror. The memorial they created in the first baptist church just a week afterwards with the chairs, the roses, the voices is so moving. Considering the closeness of this church and community in Texas I am sure they will find their way in rebuilding their lives and memorializing their loved ones lost.

 

[MistyWaters]

"Rather than choose darkness as that young man did that day, we choose life," Pomeroy said during the service, his voice cracking as he spoke about his 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle, who was among those killed in the Nov. 5 rampage.

"I know everyone who gave their life that day," he said, pausing to gather himself. "Some of whom were my best friends and my daughter." He wiped his eyes, then added, "I guarantee they are dancing with Jesus today."
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-shooting-church-20171112-story.html

******

I can also understand why the minister and congregation may eventually decide to demolish the church, by the above comment. Their loved ones are in heaven, so the church becomes a permanent reminder where the darkness occurred.

Whatever they need to do to heal and move forward.......

It's much like roadside memorials. To some people it's important, to others the scene of an accident is not the right place to honour the life of their loved ones.

 

[rsd1200]

Quite a remarkable transformation.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...church-invites-public-see-interior/857076001/

Oh, man. That touches the soul, and hard.

 

[MistyWaters]

I think it all happened too fast. My question is, knowing he'd been told to stay away from the church, and knowing he'd shown up the previous Thursday for the fall festival dressed in black and acting weird, why didn't it occur to them to have someone keep watch during services just in case he came around?

I'm sure none of them thought he'd come in guns blazing, but they should have had an inkling he may want to disrupt services to make himself heard.

I don't recall it stated that DK was ever told out right to stay away from the church. Do you have a link for that?

It seems the "five days before" fall festival was held on Halloween and in the link below there's a pic of kids dressed in costumes. There's many adults dressed in black clothing as well.

"Five days before he would gun dozens of people down, Devin Patrick Kelley showed up at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs with his children for an annual fall festival. His appearance was unexpected because of the past family troubles, but people who saw him there thought it was a sign he was turning a corner."
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...rated-with-churchgoers-five-days-12338056.php

****

ETA another media report - absolutely no way to for the church folk to have ever predicted this tragedy.

"Devin Patrick Kelley attended a fall festival at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs five days before he killed 26 people inside the church and wounded 20 others, the local sheriff said Tuesday.

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said the church's pastor had told him Kelley's behavior did not raise any alarms."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/0...on-with-parishioners-days-before-rampage.html

 

[Tawny]

You know I look at this and I think, why weren't any of those healthy young men able to stop him?

It just seems strange, that they didn't tackle him, I don't know maybe it happened too fast, but I can't see the men just standing there and letting him shoot everybody.

By the way, absolutely no blame here, just my thoughts as I looked at the victims.

Your thoughts?


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My thoughts are that unless someone has been in a situation where bullets are flying at them, they can't really understand what it's like and how the lizard brain reacts to that threat. First, it happened super fast. Second, the body has 3 reactions: fight, flight, freeze. MOST people will freeze, then flee. Few will fight because survival takes over and rational thinking goes out the window.

My thoughts are, don't question a victim for not running toward bullets.

 

[faw720]

My thoughts are that unless someone has been in a situation where bullets are flying at them, they can't really understand what it's like and how the lizard brain reacts to that threat. First, it happened super fast. Second, the body has 3 reactions: fight, flight, freeze. MOST people will freeze, then flee. Few will fight because survival takes over and rational thinking goes out the window.

My thoughts are, don't question a victim for not running toward bullets.

My first reaction when something horrible happens is to freeze. It just takes my brain a while to realize what is actually happening. When someone is shooting you could be dead with even half a second hesitation. JMO

 

[Bill Carson]

We had a smaller tragedy in our town of 600 people in the 70s. I was a baby, and although no one talks about it much, every time I drive by the spot in the field on the edge of town where the little girl was buried by the boy who killed her, I think about it.

I know exactly what you mean. I used to live in a small, rural town, and several people I personally knew were killed in separate car accidents over the fifteen years that I lived in the area. Every single time I would pass by one of the sites where a friend was killed, I would think about the person, the accident, the loss. It weighs on the mind, takes a toll.

 

[dianaelaine59]

Oh, man. That touches the soul, and hard.

It looks like it's in Heaven


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[Gooddeeds]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ilation-other-mental-health-issues/853131001/

The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year's goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

WHOA

-informative, and my first reaction is can we do better? I don’t know how improvement can be accomplished with going against the grain?

 

[Gooddeeds]

What they did with the church was really awesome - it should stay that way.

You cant bulldoze the past away - for those it
will be healing to they can go there

For those think it is not a good idea for them
to do - they can stay away

really did a touching job on it - quite moving

-agree! It has an atmospheric museum feel. These sweet country folks created a beautiful exhibit!

 

[NaanOfYourBusiness]

-agree! It has an atmospheric museum feel. These sweet country folks created a beautiful exhibit!

[video=cnn;us/2017/11/12/inside-texas-church-shooting-memorial-hartung-sot-nr.cnn]http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/13/us/inside-first-baptist-church/index.html[/video]

I seen on YouTube what inside the church looked like before and what worship on Sunday looked and sounded like. What a vibrant church life!
"Unrecognizable" now is right!

 

[thefragile7393]

I'm not a big fan of defining things as "terrorism." It seems similar to the label, "hate crime."

Both are real and need to be defined as such for prosecution. Without the label of domestic terrorism how would Timothy McVeigh have been prosecuted? If LE wants to define a crime as a hate crime or domestic terrorism or foreign terrorism that fine by me, as without labeling there’s not any prosecuting. Things could get mid-labeled by by and far LE is interested in getting crimes solved-and that means using a label.

 

[x_files]

Last night I was in a very crowded restaurant, and found myself thinking about what I'd do if someone suddenly started shooting (I'd jump behind the bar for cover, grab a bottle in case I had a chance to hit him in the head with it..)...point is, I suppose chances are slim, knock on wood, that any of us will become a victim of a mass shooting, but pretty sad this crosses my mind...these shooters want to instill fear. We must not let them. Moo.

It is important in case of emergency (fire/shooter) to know where the emergency exits are, and any possible hiding places. This is the new reality we live in now.

 

[x_files]

I do not have the link, but there is the prediction that soon everyone will know the victim of a mass shooting. I know four women from Minnesota that were not shot victims of thr LV shooting, but they were right there and are victims as they have PTSD.

I also know people that live in Newtown although none of their children were shot.

an article I read said until we are directly effected nothing will change due to the lack of empathy. scary thought, huh?