At the Safeway, on rhetoric and heroism

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
It is hard to look at the photos of the victims. These are people I likely passed at the grocery store or coffee shop, or on the city bus. Some of the victims I met at gatherings on border issues. The Safeway area on the northwest side of town is a place I go by often, when I leave the southside of Tucson, to go to the Borders Bookstore down the street and stores by Safeway.
Now, I listen to how this unfolded. Most people are aware of the political rhetoric of hate in the United States, and that Arizona has become a microcosm of it. Those of us who lived in south Tucson over the past decade have watched how the television and radio political rhetoric has inspired violence, and arrests, of all people of color.
What is happening now all across Arizona, and the nation, is in part the result of hate rhetoric and much more. But now the victims are no longer only people of color. And neither are the perpetrators.
A few weeks ago, as usual the Border Patrol agents stopped the Greyhound bus near the New Mexico and Texas border. But this time, as opposed to all the other times when they came on screaming for papers and harassing brown people, this time they arrested young, white teenagers. The drug sniffing dog found drugs in their backpacks down below. The three boys, with one crying, were taken away, in the dark night in a desolote spot. It was the first time I've seen white people arrested at these border stops.
It was a sign of change.
But what happened at the Safeway, with six people killed and 14 wounded, also points to other issues besides political hate rhetoric and the state of tension in southern Arizona.
It points to the need for early detection and treatment of mental illness. Based on the statements of those who went to high school and Pima Community College with the suspect Jared Lee Loughner, the signs were there. It is not uncommon for young people with mental illness to have a sharp decline in their late teens, as they described. Whatever led to this, it is yet unknown.
There is also the issue of how easy it is for people to legally obtain semi-automatic weapons.
During this horrible mass killing, there could have been many more victims if courageous people had not halted the shooter when he was reloading. Several heroes ran toward the shooter. Tucson is a big city with a small community in its arms.
A woman, Patricia Miasch, 61, took one magazine away after he shot the people in front of her. Loughner was reloading and preparing to continue shooting when she grabbed the magazine. Several men had tackled him and held him down, including Roger Sulzeber and Bill D. Badger, 74, who had been grazed in the head by a bullet. Joseph Zimudie said he was at the Walgreens and heard the shots. He was armed for his own protection and ran to the shooter and helped subdue him.
Sincere condolences go out to all of the victims, their families and everyone whose life was touched and traumatized by this.
Perhaps the face of the nine-year-old girl who was killed, Christina Green, will remind us all to be more gentle with one another, more vigilant in the constructive battle against racism and hate, and when called upon, to arise to heroism.
Also see: Heroes of Tucson shooting, Patricia Maisch:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20027980-504083.html
More heroes:
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Heroes+Tucson+shooting
Tucson victim shielded his wife from bullets
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A5RE20110111