4/15/2023 0 Comments Squirrel hillThe Parkland youth, who didn't have that pre-established network, "went the activist route," she said. "Was it possible that a community could have lovingkindness or activism but not both?" In close-knit Squirrel Hill with many service institutions, people focused on healing each other. Late in the book Tammy Hepps, a local activist and researcher who is one of Oppenheimer's key voices, makes a fascinating observation comparing the responses of Squirrel Hill and Parkland, site of the Florida high school where a shooter killed 17 students earlier in 2018. Black students at Taylor Allderdice instinctively supported their classmates, but asked why the deaths of Black boys and men, spread out over a year, didn't draw such a response.ĭespite the number of such violent events that America has experienced, no Solomon has yet emerged to settle the question of when it is OK to bring up politics after a shooting. But the aftermath exposes the same provocative questions that have troubled most American communities after a mass shooting. Squirrel Hill may be a model of resilience, as Oppenheimer suggests. After deflecting the New Yorkers' efforts to bigfoot the locals several times, an enraged Pittsburgh leader told them to "Get out of my city." In the most egregious example, uninvited New York burial societies came to Squirrel Hill with the intention of taking over preparation of the corpses, even though Pittsburgh had two Jewish burial societies of its own. Oppenheimer also describes how often victims, relatives and the grieving community are asked or even expected to accommodate other people. "It used to be that there was no playbook for what to do when a terrorist comes to shoot up your school now there are protocols, with lockdown drills and alarms and acronyms - principals and security guards all know about ALICE (which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate), an 'active shooter response training' trademarked by a for-profit company called the ALICE Training Institute, which charges schools and other organizations to tell them how to respond in the highly unlikely event that they face a shooter." In discussing the shooting's impact on Taylor Allderdice, the neighborhood high school, he writes: More ominously, Oppenheimer also notes that commercial industry has grown up around these tragic events, too. Such shootings occur so often that a circuit of people now responds to them, like the late Greg Zanis, a retired carpenter who drove around the country bringing handmade memorial crosses, Stars of David and other symbols to the sites of shootings. For example, during the year Oppenheimer chronicles, a 19-year-old gunman invaded a small Orthodox synagogue in Poway, Calif., killing one woman and injuring three other people. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Unfortunately, Oppenheimer's book also reminds us how common mass shootings in America have become. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. ![]() NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. ![]() (SOUNDBITE OF SINDRADI'S "A VERY SPECIAL AUTUMN")ĬOLEMAN: This is Korva Coleman in for Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and you're listening to NPR News.Ĭopyright © 2018 NPR. I think that if news programs could make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing medical - anybody who is coming into a place where there's a tragedy - because if you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope. He also, in times of crisis, had advice for the media and those watching about not just what to say about tragedy but how to show it.įRED ROGERS: Always look for the helpers. Fred Rogers, the public television star who gently counseled curiosity and kindness to children, was one of Squirrel Hill's most famous residents. In a sad irony, the shooting in Pittsburgh took place in Squirrel Hill, which is literally Mister Rogers' neighborhood.
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