Monday started out on a cheery note, with the news that the city’s water service was continuing on a path to normalcy. And then all that water turmoil fell by the wayside as the news came out that a young man, just 15 years old, had been shot at school.
The “at school” part just hung in the air. We pictured students watching and terrified. Teachers scrambling to offer guidance while they are trembling with fear. And the shooting was reported by police to be at the hands of another 15-year-old. Both just babies in the scheme of things.
One of them is behind bars; the other is in the hospital struggling to survive.
Things like this don’t happen here. We’re sure that is the feeling people have all over the country when things like this do happen in their backyards. And yet it does and did.
Pine Bluff is a pretty large town, but at times like this, it seems small and quaint, certainly small enough that there aren’t many degrees of separation between people.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Alderman Glen Brown Sr. brought home that point, telling a reporter after a City Council meeting that the shooting victim is his brother’s grandchild.
“As I speak of it right now, I can feel the pain,” Brown said. “With three or four other relatives that go to that school, the school district is in my heart.”
Mayor Shirley Washington may know best how the school personnel are taking this. She was in education for almost 40 years before deciding to run for office.
“We all know that school shootings are a tragic occurrence in any city,” she said, “but the reality of the tragedy is driven home when it happens in your own community.”
Yes, this is now our tragedy. What comes next is ours as well.
We are eager to hear thoughts on how to make something like this far less likely to happen in the future, but it is enough for now to keep pulling for the young man who is fighting for his life and to share a hug and a prayer as we try to make sense of this and get through it, as painful as that may be.