I
woke up Sunday morning with faint
images of a happy dream lingering
in my brain. I couldn’t remember
exactly what it was about, but I knew it had
involved flying motorcycles. And being at
peace.
“Good morning, love,” Finn said.
“Good morning!” I responded, grinning
and stretching out my arms to hug him.
“You ready for work today?”
“I guess so. Gotta love the Sunday to
Thursday schedule,” he said.
I was not ready for work. The day before
I’d followed along as the details of the
horrific shooting at a Walmart in El Paso
unfolded in news coverage and press brief-
ings. The night of the shooting, as Finn and
I rode the New York City Metro to see Once
Upon A Time...in Hollywood at the theater,
I looked out the window and wondered if
this movie would be my last.
I was interning at USA TODAY, and, as
Sunday’s only breaking news intern, I knew
my day would be filled with the shooting’s
aftermath — with the livestreamed press
conferences, the terrifying footage of shots
fired, the endless “thoughts and prayers”
tweets.
“I have to tell you something,” Finn said.
“There was another mass shooting last
night. In Dayton. Nine people died.”
I turned away and closed my eyes. I took
a deep breath and tried to will myself back
to sleep. I didn’t want to face the world and
I especially didn’t want to report on it.
Finn put his arms around me and kissed
the top of my head.
“I know, love. I know.”
He understood. We all do. We’re part of
a generation where mass shootings are the
norm in our country, a fact of life that every
few weeks or so will pop up in our push
notifications. Sometimes, I’ve felt almost
numb to it — until it hits close to home.
March 16, 2019 started out as an ordi-
nary day in Ann Arbor. Well, not totally
ordinary. It was St. Patrick’s weekend,
everyone was wildly drunk at frat parties,
and rumor had it that Sasha Obama was
visiting. For the most part, though, it was
a typical college Saturday. I went out with
some friends during the day, ate a much-
needed quesadilla at BTB and went home
for a refreshing nap.
Nada texted our group chat, reminding
everyone to come to the vigil in the Diag
for the victims of the recent shooting at
the mosques in Christchurch, New Zea-
land. When I woke up, Finn and I met and
headed over with our backpacks, planning
to study for our upcoming midterms after.
When we got there, I found my friends
standing together holding plastic candles.
I hugged Nada, and then squeezed into
the crowd next to Soraya, who promptly
grabbed my hand. In front of me, I saw
Amara. We smiled at each other.
The vigil was powerful. I stood there
silently, still grasping Soraya’s hand. As
people got up to speak, sharing poems,
terrorism statistics and the list of those
killed, I imagined the pain and terror of
the mosque-goers in Christchurch. I imag-
ined that whatever grief and fear I feel, the
Muslim community on campus felt it even
more. Then, all of a sudden, I was running
for my life.
I heard campus police officers shouting
“MOVE! MOVE!” and I saw people scat-
ter. Soraya’s hand was ripped from mine,
and I saw Finn standing ahead of me. He
grabbed my arm and yelled at me to run. It
clicked in my head that someone probably
had a gun and I ran. I accidentally bumped
into another girl and whispered “I’m so
sorry, I have to keep moving.”
We ran two blocks, then three, as an
ambulance whizzed past. My mind jumped
to blood and death and injury, and I felt
my heart sink and a desire to scream. Finn
kept dragging me along, but I told him, my
throat raw, that I couldn’t run anymore.
At that moment, I saw Annika walking
in our direction. She was late to the vigil,
and she looked at our horrified faces with
bemusement.
“What happened?” she asked.
I could barely get the words out. There
may be a shooter, people might be hurt
and we don’t know where the rest of our
friends are. Annika still looked confused,
and pulled out her phone to see if any of our
friends had texted.
“We can’t just stand out here, let’s go!
Right now!” Finn yelled, bringing us
back to reality.
So, we ran all the way down State
Street and into the Ford School. As soon
as we entered the building, the reporter
in me kicked in. I checked my phone
and saw dozens of text messages from
people in my clubs and my roommates.
People on campus were confused and
terrified, and alerts from the University
weren’t coming fast enough. I knew I
had to do something.
Finn, Annika and I piled into a class-
room with a bunch of other people who
had been having some conference in
the building, people who at first were
confused by our frantic faces and then
heard the reports of a possible active
shooter. We sat in the back, listening to
the police scanner and whispering.
Mostly to keep my terrified thoughts
at bay, I dove into action. Editor in Chief
Maya, my co-Managing News Editor
Grace, the Senior News Editors and I
texted frantically, trying to find out what
had happened, praying no one was hurt.
We split up tasks and people to call, we
started a Google Doc, but frankly, we didn’t
know what to do. This wasn’t some abstract
event we were covering as student journal-
ists. This concerned our friends’ lives and
our own.
Eventually, it became clear that this was
a false alarm, and that everyone was, at least
physically, okay. About three hours after the
initial scare, police declared an all-clear. I
holed up in my room and wrote the story
as quickly as I could, scanning social media
and conducting phone interviews.
I stayed in the thick of it, reliving every
second of the afternoon, until Maya pub-
lished the story online. It was only later
that night when the reality of the day fully
hit me.
I laid in bed, and when I closed my eyes,
I imagined what would have happened if
someone had shot into the crowd. What if
I had lost someone I loved forever? What
if someone I didn’t know, someone full of
youth and promise, had been killed? And
what if I had had to report on it, asking
their closest friends to tell me about an
unthinkable loss?
The journalist adrenaline keeping me
afloat dissipated and I broke down. How
does anyone do this work without feel-
ing crippled by the horror around them? I
didn’t want to be a journalist — I wanted
to curl into a ball and sink further into my
bed.
In the aftermath of the scare, The Daily
dealt with the consequences of sending
out tweets with unconfirmed informa-
tion, ultimately writing an apology letter
and refining our news emergency protocol.
The News Section wrote a follow-up story
on the particular terror felt by the Muslim
community. I helped a team of reporters
write about the University’s emergency
alert system. For the rest of the week I felt
off, shaking at loud noises and suspicious
figures.
But then I grew angry. News broke about
mass shootings almost daily, and with each
death toll, I felt my helplessness slowly turn
into resolve. If no one reported on the vio-
lence, reminding people in power of every
tragic death, nothing was going to change.
Without persistent conversations on cam-
pus and push from students, the Univer-
sity felt pressure to improve its emergency
notifications. Someday, maybe, this could
finally register with national leaders.
So that summer Sunday morning, I
pulled myself together and got myself to
work. I faced the grueling details of the
weekend’s shootings. After work, I dis-
tracted myself with the second season of
Fleabag.
Later that week, I watched from home
as my coworkers were evacuated from USA
TODAY headquarters after an active shoot-
er scare. I thought about how scheduling a
doctor’s appointment that day might have
saved my life. And I felt a massive wave of
relief when everyone was safe.
Every once in a while, even at the start
of this school year, I glance at The Diag and
remember the screams as people sprinted
in all directions. I remember the sinking
terror and adrenaline that consumed me.
I hope that no one has to experience that
fear again. But I know for the foreseeable
future, that fear isn’t going anywhere.
3B
Wednesday, September 11, 2019 // The Statement
3B
ILLUSTRATION BY SHERRY CHEN
Into the chaos: Facing gun violence as a
student reporter
BY ELIZABETH LAWRENCE, MANAGING NEWS EDITOR