Look Out 'Cause Here It Comes

Even as we watch the trial of George Floyd's murderer, we are reminded that the problem that made this fodder for twenty-four hour news networks continues. Seemingly unabated. The pepper spraying of a uniformed Army medic by Virginia police hardly had a chance to gain traction before the shooting of Daunte Wright by officers in Minnesota. 

Meanwhile, little time was wasted on finding the irony of connecting schools reopening and school shootings. A student opened fire in a Knoxville high school, wounding a police officer responding to the scene. That young man was subsequently shot and killed. Earlier in the day, Knoxville police responded to a domestic dispute that ended with the shooter killing his estranged wife and her mother before returning to his home and shooting himself. With all that tragedy going on, a local TV station got its footage of  helicopters responding mixed up. The news anchor's response: "I forgot about the other shooting." 

Not really surprising, since every bit of this takes place in front of the mural in which we have been living called COVID-19. Once we passed half a million dead, the next milestone felt like it would be one million. And isn't that just how the math of these things go?

When one person dies, it is a tragedy. When dozens die? When hundreds? Half a million? Eventually you become desensitized to the carnage. In my lifetime, I can remember casualty counts being part of an evening newscast. David Brinkley bringing  you the latest from the war in Vietnam. Maybe that was the origin of the "if it bleeds, it leads" tactic employed by news organizations. Fifty years later, we sit transfixed as the numbers swell. The guy in Kentucky wounded one and was shot himself? How does this count as a mass shooting? As if we were rooting for a body count.

It would be cynical to suggest that a story in which it turned out that everyone got away safe would bring a wave of disappointment across a newsroom. Worse yet if that wave crested in your living room. Every life saved is a win. Every day that goes by without a murderous rampage is a good day. Seldom do we hear about the man or woman who died happily in their sleep, surrounded by family. 

It happens all the time. You might not know it when you live in twenty-first century America. Which I suppose is why we have cat videos. When the world is pushing its daily dose of decimation at you, it's nice to know that you can click on a few minutes of cats trying to squeeze themselves in to spaces far too small for them. It doesn't make the murder go away. But it does offer a pause.

Take it.