Post by abbey1227 on Jun 14, 2022 7:32:18 GMT
Such timid creatures..........
The 74
They Ran for their Lives: Panic at DC March Inflames the Trauma of Parkland
Mark Keierleber Mon, June 13, 2022, 5:01 PM Washington, D.C.
It was during a solemn moment of silence that Stacey Wesch fell to the ground in fear for her life.
Just four years earlier, her daughter hid in a closet for more than two hours after a gunman killed 17 people at her high school in Parkland, Florida. Now, during a gun control rally on Saturday in Washington, D.C., a false alarm thrust Wesch into a panic attack. The lingering trauma of the Parkland shooting was put on display just steps from the White House in the form of raw terror as Wesch and hundreds of others believed they had come under gunfire.
“I saw security rushing and then everybody started running and I completely froze,” Wesch told The 74. “All I could think about was our kids, what they went through, and here we are, we’re going through this and how scared our kids must have been.”
The mayhem began when a man’s screams broke the silence as an estimated 40,000 paid respects to the 19 children and two teachers killed in a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school last month. The D.C. suspect reportedly hopped a fence and rushed toward the stage before being restrained by security. As he yelled, some witnesses believed he said he was armed; other reports suggest he shouted “I am the gun” while throwing an object into the crowd.
During the commotion, a loudspeaker tumbled to the ground and emitted a loud pop, causing many in the front of the audience to take cover on the ground as others ran from the stage. Erica Ford, the co-creator of the New York City Crisis Management System, observed the melee from the stage and jumped into action to stop rally goers from getting trampled in a stampede.
“Do not run!” she yelled into the microphone. “Please do not run. There is no issue here.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, lauded Ford’s prompt reaction in a Twitter thread Sunday morning.
“Because of her quick thinking, the crowd stopped,” wrote Guttenberg, who briefly took the stage on Saturday to explain what had transpired moments earlier. “Had people kept on running, people would have been injured.”
A U.S. Park Police spokesperson identified the suspect as Mitchell Martinez, a 21-year-old from Coral Gables, Florida, who was charged with disorderly conduct for creating fear and disorderly conduct for disrupting a gathering. An investigation determined that Martinez was not armed, the spokesperson said, and he was released from custody.
The incident lasted just a brief moment, but for thousands of Americans who have survived mass school shootings and their families, it was a terrible proof point that the psychological toll of those events lasts a lifetime. More than a quarter of those who witness a mass shooting develop post-traumatic stress disorder and a third develop acute stress disorder, according to National Center for PTSD estimates. Since the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in suburban Denver, more than 311,000 students have been exposed to campus gun violence, according to The Washington Post.
“Our community is still suffering,” said Angela Weber, whose son survived the Parkland attack. “It took less than four minutes for our shooter to kill 17 educators and students, wound 17 others and create trauma in a community of thousands. The ripple effects of that tsunami of trauma continues to this day.”
They Ran for their Lives: Panic at DC March Inflames the Trauma of Parkland
Mark Keierleber Mon, June 13, 2022, 5:01 PM Washington, D.C.
It was during a solemn moment of silence that Stacey Wesch fell to the ground in fear for her life.
Just four years earlier, her daughter hid in a closet for more than two hours after a gunman killed 17 people at her high school in Parkland, Florida. Now, during a gun control rally on Saturday in Washington, D.C., a false alarm thrust Wesch into a panic attack. The lingering trauma of the Parkland shooting was put on display just steps from the White House in the form of raw terror as Wesch and hundreds of others believed they had come under gunfire.
“I saw security rushing and then everybody started running and I completely froze,” Wesch told The 74. “All I could think about was our kids, what they went through, and here we are, we’re going through this and how scared our kids must have been.”
The mayhem began when a man’s screams broke the silence as an estimated 40,000 paid respects to the 19 children and two teachers killed in a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school last month. The D.C. suspect reportedly hopped a fence and rushed toward the stage before being restrained by security. As he yelled, some witnesses believed he said he was armed; other reports suggest he shouted “I am the gun” while throwing an object into the crowd.
During the commotion, a loudspeaker tumbled to the ground and emitted a loud pop, causing many in the front of the audience to take cover on the ground as others ran from the stage. Erica Ford, the co-creator of the New York City Crisis Management System, observed the melee from the stage and jumped into action to stop rally goers from getting trampled in a stampede.
“Do not run!” she yelled into the microphone. “Please do not run. There is no issue here.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, lauded Ford’s prompt reaction in a Twitter thread Sunday morning.
“Because of her quick thinking, the crowd stopped,” wrote Guttenberg, who briefly took the stage on Saturday to explain what had transpired moments earlier. “Had people kept on running, people would have been injured.”
A U.S. Park Police spokesperson identified the suspect as Mitchell Martinez, a 21-year-old from Coral Gables, Florida, who was charged with disorderly conduct for creating fear and disorderly conduct for disrupting a gathering. An investigation determined that Martinez was not armed, the spokesperson said, and he was released from custody.
The incident lasted just a brief moment, but for thousands of Americans who have survived mass school shootings and their families, it was a terrible proof point that the psychological toll of those events lasts a lifetime. More than a quarter of those who witness a mass shooting develop post-traumatic stress disorder and a third develop acute stress disorder, according to National Center for PTSD estimates. Since the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in suburban Denver, more than 311,000 students have been exposed to campus gun violence, according to The Washington Post.
“Our community is still suffering,” said Angela Weber, whose son survived the Parkland attack. “It took less than four minutes for our shooter to kill 17 educators and students, wound 17 others and create trauma in a community of thousands. The ripple effects of that tsunami of trauma continues to this day.”
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