Two Mass Shootings, Same Day, Michigan
I went to two locations of mass shootings this week.
One where every single person I talked to was white.
One where every single person I talked to was black.
The white shooter shot white people. And the black
shooter shot black people. The poor shooter shot
poor people. The middle-class shooter shot middle-
class people. The veteran killed a veteran. USMC
killed a Navy vet. Two kids and two adults were
shot by a dumpster. Too many to count were shot
in a church. The police said no comment. The fire
department said no comment. The neighbors, though,
had comments. I saw a man in his car; I walked up
and realized he was crying. I asked if his tears were
due to the shooting. “What shooting?” I told him
about it. “Did they die?” I don’t think so, I said.
Shot in the feet, shoulder, chest, but I think they
all lived. At the other shooting, a nurse told me
about seeing the body recovery trucks. I asked
why the man was crying. He told me work has
been hard. He’s a chef at the airport, told me
that’s all he does is work. We’re in Highland
Park. The crime index marks it as “Safer than
2% of U.S. cities.” That means that it’s more
dangerous than 98% of U.S. cities. Detroit.
This area is known for “high overall, violent
and property crime rates.” He’s an African-
American man in his 40s, crying in his car.
It’s not about the shootings. He didn’t know
about the shootings. I find he’s crying about,
really, poverty. The apartment complex we
are in front of is an area rated F for “violent
crime” and F for “property crime” and F for
“other crime” and yet the apartments here
cost over a thousand dollars. I ask if there
is anything I can do for him. He shakes his
head no, the tears streaming down his face
reflected in the streetlights. I go up to two
men in bright white T-shirts and ask them
how we lessen the gun violence. “I don’t
know,” one says. They tell me I seem like
a cop. I tell them I’m not, tell them I don’t
know how it works, but I think I’d have to
tell them if I’m a cop and I’m not. I ask
why they think I’m a cop. “The glasses,
the awkward laugh.” I give the awkward
laugh again, tell them I don’t want names,
ask how we lessen gun violence, especially
in black communities. They’re silent, one
lights up, and then the other says, “Poverty.”
One word. That’s it. The news is all about
guns and mental health, mental health and
guns, and he says one word that’s not at all
getting mentioned: Poverty. I ask if they’re
working. “Illegally,” one of them tells me.
They walk away. And then I’m an hour up
north, and a Marine has rammed his truck
into a Mormon church, opened fire, and I’m
in front of the church, because police let me
in as a journalist, and there’s a moment
where the other journalists get all their
footage and leave, a moment where I’m
alone, a moment where even the police
officer standing there, not letting any of
the journalists get closer, leaves, and I’m
alone in the dark in front of this church
that’s just burned down full of bullet
holes and the night is angry and eating
the entirety of the world and it’s quiet,
no crickets, the moon afraid to breathe,
and I feel sick to my stomach, to my
soul, and I just stare at the church sign
and I can’t feel the presence of God
and it hurts me, not to be able to feel,
and the dark aches and eats into me,
and it’s rural dark, Halloween-nearing
dark, fall dark, death dark, and I can’t
believe what we’re doing, and there’s
nothing I can say or do, so I stare and
I wish for God, but there’s a brutal
lacking of stars in the sky tonight.
Ron Riekki: “As a poet-journalist, I’m going to all of the mass shootings in Michigan for the next year. I’m born and raised in Michigan and we’re being plagued by a gun violence that, to a large extent, goes ignored by the media. I found myself becoming sicker and sicker at the reality of what was going on, doing my own research into the realization that we are averaging a mass shooting in Michigan just about once every two weeks. Going to the locations has allowed me to talk to people who I have found to be incredibly open with me, and typically we talk much longer than expected, as there seems to be so much to say. I can’t believe where we’re at and how little things are changing. We think in binaries in the U.S. and the news splits the conversation into guns or mental health, when the reality is in the AND. It means we have to take care of guns AND mental health AND poverty and the other ANDs of this complex issue that, for some reason, nothing seems to be happening to change. So I’m forcing myself to look deeper into it and write about it to put a spotlight on the fact that this gun violence is just growing and growing and growing and growing.”
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