For the umpteenth time, it happened again. A crazed shooter loaded with guns and ammunition sought out an environment concentrating large numbers of people in a small space with relatively few avenues for escape and mowed people down like a real-life arcade game.
There are many things about these scenarios no one can predict or prevent. There are some things that cannot be predicted in the particular but CAN be predicted in the aggregate to drive changes that could reduce the likelihood of similar shootings in the future that American society completely fails to acknowledge which is shameful.
But there's one aspect of these incidents that strikes me as completely predictable and completely avoidable but happens EVERY time in the aftermath and could be cementing further harm to survivors -- the post-event, on-site obligatory interviews with stunned children being asked to look into the TV camera and describe what they saw and heard.
Tell us about the gunshots. Can you describe seeing the killer in the hall? What was it like when you were playing dead next to your dying friend?
Are these interviews helping ANYONE?
In every case, the killer is either in custody or dead, so no details are needed to identify someone at large still posing a threat.
It's pretty obvious most witnesses to this type of event will be in shock, no one needs to see footage of someone staring numbly into the camera to confirm the horror of what transpired.
When there are five, ten, twenty or fifty plus bodies on the ground, it would seem obvious law enforcement doesn't need much eyewitness testimony to obtain a conviction of a killer that survives and little is learned about motive at the scene of the crime.
We've proven at this point that such real-time eyewitness accounts have done NOTHING to soften the hearts much less change the minds of people who refuse to consider changes in regulations that might eliminate some of the paths between a mentally ill person and murderous immortality.
So what's the point of these interviews, besides providing footage for "disaster porn" video montages that are repeated over and over and over and over again as part of an offensive journalistic meme of "you are there" faux compassion?
It's one thing for a victim to be interviewed by a professional immediately after a crime or traumatic event so the professional can do their job to investigate, etc. It's another thing entirely for a victim to be recorded immediately after a horrific event, being prompted for explicit details then having that video repeated ad nauseam as part of a permanent public history of the event. That doesn't help "healing" in the community, it acts as a multi-media bookmark capable of putting that victim back in that EXACT place of maximum psychological trauma to relive for the rest of their life.
Victims can still choose to remember these types of events as they choose and deal with the aftermath at their own pace in their own time. Putting them in front of a public camera and beaming their reactions worldwide at a point of maximum vulnerability seems like cruel, crude, destructive, emotional voyeurism. The victims in their shock may not think about that in the moment. Reporters, producers back at the station and everyone else watching sure as hell should know better. We've certainly had enough practice.
WTH
