Shots Fired in Terminal 2_A Witness to the Fort Lauderdale Shooting Reflects on America's Mass Shooting Epidemic by William Hazelgrove

Author:William Hazelgrove [Hazelgrove, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633883840
Goodreads: 40629958
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2018-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Terror is something you have to experience to understand the word. It is uncertainty, fear, and stress, coupled with a feeling of impending doom. It is the unknown that grips you, and we are not a people equipped to handle this new emotion. Middle-class people mostly live lives that follow patterns and these patterns give us expected results: school, college, work, family, retirement, dying only of disease or natural causes. The pioneers were much more experienced with terror. They experienced the terror of Indian attacks, starvation, bears, freezing to death, disease, dying from lack of water and shelter, even loneliness. The people who settled America knew life was short and terror sat at their elbow. Many would leave their bones on the plains after starvation, exposure, or Indian attacks robbed them of their lives. The unexpected was expected.

Corporations have given Americans a model to plug into, and risk aversion has become a way of life. Terror for modern people belongs in the television. Our terror is confined to doctor visits where unknown diseases lurk. So when we are confronted with terror, be it through a shooting or a bombing, we aren't quite sure what to do with this catastrophic anxiety. Our only response is to get as far away as possible and that is our focus now—to escape from the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport.

We hear rumors again that buses are coming but no one confirms this. Kitty, Callie, and Careen are still in the car, but the photographer lets us know she will be leaving soon and she can't take anyone with her. The police are trying to contain the ten thousand people at the airport with the idea that a shooter still might be hiding out somewhere. People who have tried to escape the airport by climbing fences or running across fields are frozen in time by photographers taking pictures of them with their hands high in the air as heavily armed SWAT officers intercept their flight.

The bottom line is that we have to be ready to go at a moment's notice. All our energy is focused on escaping the airport. The airport is danger. The airport is uncontrolled and the atmosphere resembles a battlefield, with SWAT teams wandering around, not sure where the next shot might come from. I notice that the governor has quickly departed after giving his news conference. The media men and women are hanging around with their microphones ready. I have fielded more than a few calls from radio stations asking for a live interview. One woman is going to call me back and interview me when I know when we are leaving.

A central problem is that we still have no luggage and all our clothes and belongings are back in Terminal 1. Irrationally, I feel that if I could retrieve our luggage then I could take back some control and this would lead to escape. All day long we have been swept up in events that have left us powerless and in danger.

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