Shots Fired in Terminal 2

by William Hazelgrove

  People initially thought Holmes's appearance was part of the movie premier entertainment, and then, realizing what was happening, panicked, rushing the doors. Holmes left by the same emergency exit he had entered and went back to his car, where police arrested him. He was described by police as calm and disconnected.8

  In total seventy people were shot, with twelve fatalities. Four men died protecting their girlfriends. Many were hit multiple times. Most were shot in the chest and head as they sat in their seats. The shotgun and the automatic rifle killed most of those who died. Ten died in the theater and two died at the hospital. One child, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, age six, died. Her mother was also shot and survived as a paraplegic.9 Caleb Medley was the last to leave the hospital after three brain surgeries. He uses a wheelchair and has difficulty speaking.10

  Holmes pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. He underwent several psychiatric evaluations and was found fit to stand trial. A psychiatrist said Holmes was legally sane during the shooting but that he suffered from schizoaffective disorder. The jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty and Holmes was sentenced to twelve life sentences, with an additional 3,318 years.11

  Security guards began patrolling theaters nationwide. The Dark Knight Rises's premiere in France, Mexico, and Japan were canceled. Colorado gun sales went through the roof, increasing by 43 percent in the week following the shooting.12 The debate over the sale of automatic weapons flared up again, given Holmes's access to high-powered semiautomatic weapons designed to kill humans. The assault weapons ban of 1994 to 2004 was cited as a deterrent, but no changes were made to any law. Holmes's wide-eyed mug shot and flaming red hair became the new face of insanity on the internet.

  Shootings are class conscious. It would seem the rich have not been caught in many mass shootings. If one were to follow the line through American shootings, it is usually a middle-class person shooting other middle-class people. Schools, colleges, restaurants, theaters, and concerts are all frequented by middle-class people. Not to say rich people are not there, but the images we see—the victims, the wounded—all belong to the middle class.

  It is curious that mass shooters don't take it upon themselves to go after the one percent, but in truth the one percent is harder to find. Their tastes are more expensive, their homes more exclusive, their communities gated. Some don't frequent airports and instead fly on private jets. Some pass through airports and have others retrieve their baggage. Many of the rich have their children attend private schools. Many of the rich don't frequent concerts. They don't go to the latest Batman movie, and they send their kids to private, Ivy League colleges.

  The middle class is simply more vulnerable and the shooters’ ideas of revenge are not focused on the rich, whom they have little contact with, but other middle-class people just like themselves. It is the other rats in the cage they want to kill, not the cage owner. Their self-loathing extends to others they perceive to be like themselves. They turn their rage on their fellow students, fellow concert goers, movie watchers, fast food eaters, those who have no right to be happy when their lot is the same as that of the shooters, who will inflict death before taking their own lives. The upper class, the rich, are not recognizable, and in a shooter's death fantasy it is familiarity that breeds contempt and the penalty for commonality is death.

  The breathless middle-class people are the ones being interviewed on television: the mom, the dad, the children, everyone in their Kohls and Target clothes with an iPhone in their hand. The consumer class is targeted by ease of their accessibility, their known habits, patterns, and shared frustrations, in addition to the shooter's inability to rise up out of this class. The shooter sees their friends and coworkers, the bystanders, students, and strivers, as competitors, and often the shooter feels that their final act will set them apart for all time. Anonymity is the enemy, and it is felt acutely at the end, and those who compete with the shooter shall die. Fame is only promised to the one willing to kill.

  The only time the upper-class was breached was Sandy Hook, and in that case Adam Lanza was from the same community, he and his gun-loving mother seemed to have little in common with the upwardly mobile professionals living near them. The large woody lots in the area hid one neighbor from another. Did Adam Lanza, besides being severely mentally ill, go after the children of these more talented, driven people surrounding him? Did he go after the Achilles heel of all who would look down on him? Did he feel the rage of class consciousness, the club he and his mother could never belong to? He went after these upper-middle-class professionals in the one place where they were most vulnerable—their children.

  Being a victim can be dehumanizing, no matter what class they are part of. Victims’ families are not told right away. Hospitals have to be checked, dental records secured, and crime scenes need to be detailed. No one wants to make a mistake and so in Sandy Hook the children remained in the classroom for twelve hours. Without confirmation, the feeling of hope, that somehow the inevitable did not happen, is kept alive even when people know the worst.

  After the 9/11 attack, people walked around for days with pictures of their loved ones. They held them up to cameras and posted them on boards. They had not heard from their family members since the attack, yet they hoped that somehow they would appear alive. Humans do not easily believe the worst. It is a coping mechanism. When men are lost at sea and never found, as in the Andrea Gail disaster in 1991, where a fishing boat was lost during a storm (as depicted in the book and movie The Perfect Storm), their wives and mothers sometimes still hold out hope that one day they will come back, even years later.1

  Family members hope that there has been a colossal mistake and that the person was sent to the wrong hospital or that a body had been misidentified as their loved one. This is why the police have to be sure of a victim's identity before they notify the family or release names to the media. In some situations, dental records are required or identification by the family is needed. But in school shootings, where kids and parents are involved, it starts to come down to simple math. Four hundred and fifty kids attended the school that day and only 425 returned. Twenty-five kids are missing. In Columbine they bused the kids out to another location, where parents were waiting. As each bus came there were fewer parents waiting. Finally, the parents left were faced with the probability that their children had been victims. No more buses were coming.

  No victims have been identified so far at the airport. But we hear immediately that some of the families of the victims are staying at the Quality Inn. We have become a small community of survivors and like every small community there are rumors that ripple through in waves. Someone says the airline will be picking up the hotel tab and paying for everyone. (This proves not to be true for us.) Another rumor says that there will be special shuttles taking us back to the airport. This turns out not to be true. Then it is rumored that our tickets will be reimbursed to us. This is not true either. The only rumor that sticks is the one about the victims’ family also being at the Quality Inn. They are about to become victims too.

  That first night has been chaotic, but in the morning we go back to the pool area for breakfast. It is mobbed, and people crowd around the hotel fare of plasticized eggs, Rice Krispies, and warm orange juice, swarming the waffle makers, the toast with sealed jellies, the pans of sausages, and the coffee that runs out instantly, as happy music plays in the background. Stressed out people eat a lot and we have to wait to get some coffee and some more eggs for the kids. The morning is strangely beautiful, with Florida giving up one of its seventy-degree days.

  I have gotten up early and tried to jog around the parking lot, around the dumpsters and trucks making morning deliveries. This is something I do on vacations that I don't do at home. The let's-get-healthy bug kicks in and for a week I become a jogger. The night before has been an experiment. Could I sleep? Could any of us sleep in the hotel room with the air conditioner whirring through the night? Would I hear those four shots in my sleep and wake
up sweating, disorientated, my peaceful slumbers destroyed forever by one Esteban Santiago?

  I do wake up every few hours, wondering where I am. I wonder if I am suffering from PTSD; I look at my son and two daughters and hope the psychic scars will not be deep. Fortunately, they all seem peacefully asleep and I, too, fall asleep and wake in the early morning with the sun peeking around the curtains. That's when I decide to take control and go for a run. I put on my swimsuit, find my high-top tennis shoes, and quietly open the door. It is chilly out, but this feels good; it reminds me of Chicago, of going home. And then I start to jog and go around the hotel five times, breathing like an asthmatic, not thinking but just concentrating on dodging the cars, the people out walking dogs with plastic bags, the deliverymen, and the dumpsters, finally giving it up when I am sure one more lap will give me a heart attack.

  After getting breakfast, Kitty and I sit at the table while the girls swim and Clay goes back to the room to sleep. He can sleep twelve hours straight and then go back to bed again. We sit with our lukewarm coffee, discussing how to get out of Florida, telling ourselves we won't have to wait until Monday morning, and swearing we will not return to Terminal 1. And then I look up and see a strange, lonely procession.

  There are three young men with beards and two women. One woman looks to be in her late fifties and walks with her head down. They seem not to be of this earth and they pass through the pool area meeting no one's eyes. They look at the ground, pulling their suitcases behind them, dressed in shorts and colorful shirts. They look like they are headed for a cruise. Kitty and I watch them, not saying a word, and then Kitty looks at me.

  “I wonder if they are family of one of the victims.”

  “I don't know,” I murmur, watching them disappear toward the rooms.

  I have seen human grief before. My uncle's funeral was something I have always remembered. His coffin was over the grave and about to be lowered when his wife threw her body on top of it and hugged the smooth lacquered wood. She cried in anguish and gasped out his name. But these people are mute, dour, moving through like ghost walkers from another world.

  I watch the last person disappear and I can only imagine what they are feeling. Maybe their loved ones are missing but haven't been confirmed dead. Maybe we are mistaken and they are just a glum group of people.

  “Maybe they missed their cruise,” I suggest, knowing this is not the case.

  Kitty looks at me. Neither of us speaks. What no one ever talks about is the survivors, the people who are wounded or the loved ones of someone who dies. the same muzzle flash that takes some lives leaves others who are never grazed by a bullet forever altered. The dead leave, but the living must go on and continue along on this new and unwanted path. The wounded heal, the dead are buried, and the survivors must cope.

  Jared Loughner liked to smoke pot, and he dropped acid and did mushrooms. He was convicted for defacing a street sign and for possession of marijuana. His father, a local government employee and retired truck driver, didn't know what to do. His son had dropped out of high school in 2006 and it was all downhill from there. Jared's manager at Quiznos said Jared had changed drastically and he was soon fired from his job. He then got a job walking dogs but he would wander off into strange areas with the dogs and was asked not to return. He tried to join the Army in 2008 but was rejected after he told the recruiter that he regularly smoked marijuana.1

  In 2010 Loughner was investigated by campus police five times at Pima Community College where he attended. Teachers complained of his bizarre behavior and campus police discovered a YouTube video that called the school a scam. He was suspended and asked to not return until he got a mental health clearance. Two months later, on November 30, he bought a Glock from Sportsman's Warehouse. On January 8, 2011, he tried to buy more ammo at a Walmart store but was turned away because of suspicious behavior.2 He went to another Walmart and bought his ammo and headed for the Safeway where Congressman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords was giving a speech in the parking lot called “Congress on Your Corner.”

  Jared had told friends goodbye on his Myspace page that morning and asked them to “please not be mad at me.”3 On the way to the Safeway, an Arizona Game and Fish Department officer pulled Loughner over for running a red light but let him go when he saw that he had no outstanding warrants.4

  Earlier that morning, his father had seen a black bag in the trunk of Loughner's car and tried to grab it. Loughner ran off and his father chased him on foot but lost him. Jared threw the bag away, but authorities would later determine that it held 9mm clips.5

  Loughner arrived at the Safeway parking lot in a taxi and stepped out of the car. He approached Congresswoman Giffords, who was standing with a group of constituents and political aides, pulled out his Glock, and shot her in the head at close range. He then turned his gun on the crowd and began firing randomly; nineteen people were shot and six of them were killed. The dead included nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, who had been born on September 11, 2001; Dorothy Morris, a retired secretary; John Roll, a retired judge; Phyllis Schneck, a homemaker; Dorwan Stoddard, a retired construction worker; and Gabe Zimmerman, a congressional staffer who worked for Giffords.6

  After Loughner emptied his Glock, he reached for another clip but it slipped and he dropped it on the ground. A woman kicked the clip away and another man hit Loughner in the back of the head with a folding chair. He was then tackled and restrained by several people who had come to meet Congresswoman Giffords. Giffords's intern, Daniel Hernandez, put pressure on the wound in her forehead to slow the bleeding until paramedics arrived. Giffords was rushed to University Medical Center, where doctors performed surgery to remove skull fragments and damaged brain tissue. The bullet had missed the center of her brain and exited the back of her skull.7 A part of her skull was removed to alleviate swelling, and a neurologist gave her a more than fifty percent chance of recovery. She was placed in a medically induced coma and put on a ventilator. Eventually, a tracheotomy replaced the ventilator and Giffords was brought out of the coma. Doctors surgically repaired her eye socket, which had been damaged by the bullet, and began reconstructive surgery on her face. On May 18, 2011, a piece of molded plastic was attached to her skull with tiny screws to replace the bone removed after the shooting.8 On June 15 she went home from the hospital, continuing therapy from there. Giffords's cognitive and physical abilities continued to improve. Three years later she was able to write and speak in short sentences and could walk with assistance.9

  On August 1, 2011, Gabby Giffords returned to the House of Representatives to cast a vote. She walked without a cane as she entered the room. While she had been right handed before the shooting, she now wrote with her left hand, which was stronger. She resigned from Congress on January 22, 2012, to focus on her recovery. As of November 30, 2017, she still needed assistance walking, had no use of her right arm, and had difficulty finding the right word, due to her brain injury.10 Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, formed Americans For Responsible Solutions to lobby for gun control. They support responsible gun ownership and increased gun laws, in order to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.11 Giffords appeared at a Senate hearing on gun violence in 2013 and spoke for gun control in a halting voice, saying, “Too many children are dying.”12

  Jared Loughner was sentenced to seven life terms in prison plus 140 years with no chance of parole.13 His mugshot is similar to James Holmes's in the stare of insanity that dominates both photos. An eerie smirk is the final insult to the memory of the six people he murdered, including a nine-year-old girl.

  I hear people talking around the pool. Everyone talks about leaving the Quality Inn and returning home. The airport reopened on Saturday but we can't get a flight out until Monday morning even though we have talked to United Airlines many times. They just can't find a flight for all of us until Monday. I go for my morning jog around the back parking lot and by the third time past the dumpster I have an idea and call my agent. She has le
ft me several messages asking if I am alright.

  I give her my idea for a book. She listens to me ramble for a while and thinks it sounds like a good idea. I really need something to occupy me and like a lot of writers I am not normal until I start writing. I want to try and make some sense out of what has happened. I have no idea what approach I will take or what I am even looking for, but we have gone through something horrific and I need to get a handle on it. So while Clay sleeps, the girls swim, and Kitty naps in a lounge chair, I tap away at my laptop.

  I don't know where I am when I am writing. I could be in a desert or at the bottom of the ocean. I am just gone. I am working along when I hear some commotion. It is a scream, a cry for help, a throaty gasp, something that sounds like a wounded animal. Kitty opens her eyes and I look up and see the woman from the day before who had passed through. The woman is now falling down by the pool. Two people from the Quality Inn are assisting her. The woman is sobbing, screaming, lying on the wet cement. Two young men run up and help the hotel people. They get her to her feet but she continues to cry in agony. Her face is red and blotchy, her eyes are slits, and she continues her pained screaming, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh. This is the horror we have all danced around. This is the grief of someone who has just been told their loved one has died. I know the authorities waited until they were sure, but I find out later this woman was called to the office of the Quality Inn where she was told that her mother was one of the victims of the shooting. And now she cannot walk, cannot talk; she simply cannot function.

  This is the horror that lies beneath all shootings. There is a strange type of adrenaline that kicks in during a shooting, allowing people to function, to get to safety, to handle the unbelievable. It must be an evolutionary defense mechanism that keeps the brain from fully understanding what is too much to handle in the moment. This coping blocks the horror that a person has been murdered and what has happened can never be undone and the loved one taken away will never return.