*This journal may contain graphic content. Be warned
If you've seen any of the national and possibly, worldwide news today, you would have seen something about two journalists being shot on live tv. Well, if you haven't here a few links that may help you out. CNN, BBC, Alternative Press. The shooting happened at 6:45 am (Eastern Time) in a little tourist area call Westlake. Westlake is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in the upcoming year and the Chamber of Commerce was being interviewed on what they had planned for this special event. The shooter, a former employee of the news station shot the camera man, the interviewer, and the interviewee before fleeing the scene. By some stroke of luck, the cameraman caught a single-second frame view of the shooter, that would lead Virginia state police on a wild goose chase.
Westlake is twenty minutes away from my high school and just an hour away from my house. Out of our twelve elementary schools, three of them were on lockdown until one in the afternoon. Everyone was afraid. We didn't know where he was going next, we didn't know who he was; all we knew is that he shot three people and he was on the run.
Let's go about the beginning of my school day. At 7:50 am, I arrived at school. My bus driver keeps the radio on so when we were waiting for the bus to stop so us older kids to go hang out with our friends, I heard a frantic broadcast about a shooting and how it was so closed off that buses had to turn around and take kids home. I didn't catch the location so I blew it off, thinking nothing of it and going into the building where me and my friends stay around in the morning. I sat on the floor and was talking to my friend Cody about a paper we had to do for a class that was due Friday when another guy name Cade showed up and sat in front of me asking, "Have you guys heard about the shooting?" This was the second time that I had heard about this today so I asked him where it was and when he told me, I had my iPod out in an instant looking for the news report. At the time, I was so frantic in searching it that I wasn't too sure what had actually happened. All I knew was that two people were shot on live television and it was in my area.
I have English 12 first period, starting at 8:35 am so all of us in that class are seniors. We had to type up a personal essay today, but the teacher gave us a moment to talk about what had happened and she gave us a small update saying that we all needed to go about our day as if it was something normal. Us seniors weren't really afraid like we were last year, but we were still curious. We went about our way typing up our papers when, all of a sudden, I heard my teacher gasp, "Oh my god." See, when the shooting happened, the interviewee and the reporter had been sent to the hospital. The cameraman was killed. My teacher had gasped because she had received an update on the reporter's condition; she had died on the way to the hospital. Most of us were glued to our phones (even though they were supposed to be out of sight), checking for the most recent update, but nothing came.
Second period starts at 10:07 am. I have to walk across the road to get to class and everyday, I wait on my friend, Amber (I've known her since the 4th grade). I was anxious standing outside because all we knew was that the killer was on the run and every time we exchanged classes, an administrator was standing outside somewhere. When Amber arrived, we bustled across the street and she told me to wait up on her after class ended since we share the same lunch.
Second period is Introduction to Media with my awesome, hippie-like teacher, Mr. C (I'm keeping his name confidential for this). All of us were glued to our phones before class started; I, who hadn't seen the "live" news report yet, watched it. In his class, we're allowed to have our phones out as long as we're doing our work; he also looks into controversial topics in the media and tries to set projects with them. Our current project is to look at sexist ads showing women because today is actually national women's equality day; in 1920, women gained the right to vote in the United States. The first thing he brought up though was about the shooting. He wanted to talk about it for a moment so that all of us could vent our thoughts. One kid, a sophomore named Ben said that he works at the Marina... Where the shooting occurred is where he goes everyday for break. Mr. C meditated with us for a moment (he does it every day and I never got into it until today) and sent us off to do our projects, telling us that if we find anything in the news that resembles an update, let him know. The entire day, he was running back and forth, talking to the other teachers about the situation.
I tried to work on my project and calm down one sophomore whose mother works at one of the elementary schools that was under lockdown. Ben was sitting near us, staring at a blank screen for about ten minutes before the opened up every big news website page after page reading the same words over and over again about the shooting. I tried talking to him, telling him that if he needed a moment to step out of the room he could, but he ignored it; just staring at the screen. I'm worried about that kid.
One of the newscasters, who was dating the deceased reporter, took to his Facebook page, telling his friends and followers that the two had been dating for nine months, had recently moved in together, and had spent the reporter's twenty-fourth birthday just last weekend. He had pictures of the two of them together, one of them showing an Eskimo kiss; where two people touch their noses together. When I saw that picture, I was in tears. This man had lost the love of his life today.
I also found out that the camera man was engaged to one of the station producers. She was watching the live footage when the shots were fired. Her last day at that particular news station was today and they had planned a party for her. He was going to continue working at our local station until the end of September before following his fiancee down into North Carolina.
A senior, named Jonathan, was running a police scanner through his phone. At the time, the shooter was on Interstate-81 before his car was found at the local airport. Jonathan, like Mr. C, was running out of the room to talk to the TV production teacher who has worked with the local news team personally before.
Twenty minutes before class ended, the guy (whose name I can't remember) sat up straight and said, "He has a Twitter page." Instantly, I got the shooter's handle and I looked him up, only for my stomach to drop. Scrolling through some of the tweets, I saw the awful things that he had said about the cameraman and reporter and at the very top, there was a tweet and two videos. The tweet said, "Check Facebook for the video." The videos above being exactly that. I watched them... I saw how the shooter walked up to the three and held a gun just above the cameraman's shoulder, those people not even noticing. He paused before firing three shots, one of them hitting the reporter. I burst into tears and I dropped my phone because I was shaking so bad... I had to try to remain calm though because that little sophomore next to me was still freaking out. Within eight minutes of that video being posted, the account was suspended.
That sophomore hurt her knee last week and has to leave class early because of her injury. She just wears a brace on it and can walk by herself, but she was so scared that she asked me to go with her. I did and as we walked back across the street the crossing guard points that my shirt; it's a sleeveless top related to Supernatural that says, "I like hot guys and monsters." He looks at me and says, "I like hot guys and monster? You mean like Cookie Monster?" Me and the girl laughed and said, "It's from a show; I like Cookie Monster though." He nodded his head and said, "I like Cookie Monster too." It's the way that he said it that caused me to giggle as the two of us were walking up to the main buildings. I left her at one of them, heading to my lunch room before grabbing my food and heading outside.
Being a senior, I get to eat outside and so do a pile of my friends. We were talking about the whole situation and how I was telling them about the videos I saw. A couple of them pulled out their phones, which the supervising teachers told them to put up on more than one occasion. Alexis (who some of you may know as Lex) had an advantage though; her boyfriend has Google Glass and so he found out all of the information he could for us. Lunch went on without much of another event.
During third period, which starts just past 12, I had finished all of my work the previous day so I had free time on the computer. I looked into the news site once again and I had received an update: The shooter had attempted suicide and had been rushed to a hospital about two hours away from here (that was as far as he had fled); he had a weak pulse... He shot himself just minutes after the sophomore and I left our second period. He had died by the time my third class was over; he was pronounced dead at 1:30 pm.
Before the entire ordeal, he had faxed a paper to ABC, saying that the one that had set him off was the Charleston shootings. He claimed that this 26-28 page fax was something of a "suicide note." He worked for multiple news stations throughout the years, but during his time working for my local one, it was said that his camera crew felt uncomfortable around him and he would make false accusations of others.
Let's go all the way back to the night before... Typically, since I live out of the county, I have to wake up at 5 am to get ready and go to town to my stepgrandfather's house. Since I began taking medicine for my insomnia, I rarely wake up at night. At 4:45 am, I sat straight up in bed, covered in sweat and terrified. I had dreamed that my school had been under a gun threat and we were told not to wear flip flops or high heels to school in the event that we had to run. I woke up exactly two hours before those fateful gunshots were fired.
I don't understand what would bring a person to do such a thing. Yes, we know you may have been angry, but there are people out there to help you cope with that. The world isn't perfect, we all know that. I just still can't believe that something so close to home, in our little 'ole Franklin County, made national news... It's scary... More terrifying than anything. I can't help, but sit with everyone else and grieve... Even though I didn't know these people personally and I just saw them on the news every now and again, I can feel the sorrow that is looming in everyone's hearts right now.
I'm sorry that I brought this upsetting journal to you all today. I spent most of my morning trying to calm down freshmen and sophomores and I sat on the verge of a panic attack for most of it all. The thing that got to me the most was when Amber told me that her boyfriend from Kentucky had texted her and told her that CNN called Westlake a "water park." I had found out that it had made national news when one of my friends down in Georgia messaged me and asked if everything was okay.
I leave you all with this final article that I believe shares the videos and each time stamp on what happened. Gunman Murders Two Virginia Reports in Attack Broadcast on Live TV **Warning: Graphic content.
Keep the families of these people in your thoughts, darlings.
-Kayla VI
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