The Media Had Me Convinced There Would be a Mass Shooting
Notes From Chicago
I couldn’t have been more excited. I counted down the days until it was finally time to pack up our truck and head to Chicago (Naperville to be exact) to see John and Hank Green in person for John’s newly released book, Turtles All the Way Down.
I dozed off on the first leg of the trip and woke just before crossing the border of Iowa into Illinois. I did what I always do when I wake during long distance drives. I stretched, complained I had to pee and checked my phone for emails and social media notifications.
While I was asleep I had received an immensely creepy email. I felt alarmed and concerned for myself, my family and the estimated 1K+ people attending the event. I felt concerned for all of our safety including John and Hank.
I read the email out loud to the truckload stuffed with my family members. Was I over reacting? My kids (adolescent/ young adults) felt is was no big deal. My husband and I were both, WTF?
With mass-shootings trending in America I felt it best to contact the police. It was a mere three hours before the show was to begin and if they felt it were a concern I wasn’t giving them much time to prepare. I called them immediately. I didn’t want to be that person who says the next day, “Oh yeah…I should have…”
When mass shootings occur in America (I can only speak of my experience in America since I live in America) it’s blown up on media outlets everywhere. In most cases before there are facts to report. We’re a nation that instantly glorifies horrid events. We lift mass murders to fame in the public eye.
We’re a nation that instantly glorifies horrid events. We lift mass murders to fame in the public eye.
The day will pass and then the next day the media presents “facts” and a lot of the time these facts do not line up from one publication to another.
For the following week the media will pull whatever pieces of information they can from wherever they can in order to continue rehashing said horrific event giving much attention to the violent assholes that commit such acts and little attention to victims and those suffering the loss of loved ones.
The media has spent years desensitizing the American people to violence and the American people have spent years eating it up.
If it weren’t for this type of culture I may have just thought, This dude is creeping me out, but that wasn’t my initial reaction. Instead, my initial reaction was, This guy is going to either shoot everyone up or blow everyone up. I could never express the level of devastation I feel living in this type of culture.
Instead, my initial reaction was, This guy is going to either shoot everyone up or blow everyone up. I could never express the level of devastation I feel living in this type of culture.
This is what happened when I contacted the police department: I was asked to contact the church and make them aware of the email received. I was also asked to bring my cellphone into the police station upon arrival. They would not accept a forwarded email in the case of receiving inaccurate, misleading or altered information on my part.
The church wasn’t open at the time I called. I left a voicemail message.
When we arrived my husband and I dropped off the rest of the family at the hotel and headed straight away to the police station.
The email on my cellphone, my actual cellphone was photocopied on a Xerox machine. I was asked if I knew the person who sent the email and why it would be sent to me.
I explained I’m a writer with a significant following. I’m all over the internet through social media and dozens of online publications. I’ve never heard of this person and it would be impossible for me to narrow down who they are or why they would send it to me. Not only that but I receive possibly hundreds of emails from readers each week and some of them are rather bizarre but this one was different.
In reality, it wasn’t a direct threat to me, or to John and Hank Green or to the audience of the event. It was more of an apocalyptic threat to the world and I, an individual who lives in a culture of mass shootings and media that glorifies mass shootings would prefer to be safe than sorry.
This was the officers response to me: He couldn’t file criminal charges from an email. I stated that wasn’t my intention. My intention was to make the police aware of a possible (not definite) threat. He told me he would have the zone car drive by there a couple of extra times throughout the night and then proceeded to spend twenty minutes discussing Chicago pizza with my husband.
I was disheartened by the officers lack of response toward my concern more so because I know if it came down to it and something did happen this man would risk his life to protect the people. I couldn’t understand why he would be dismissive other than he knows better than me and perhaps I was overreacting.
By the event’s end nothing had happened. I’m grateful for that. I’m not grateful for the mentality I have of living in fear that something may have. What if it had turned into another story where the media lifts another mass murder to fame? At least I know I wouldn’t be the person saying, “Oh yeah…I should have…,” the next day.
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