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(Edited to break from personal news)
All day yesterday I couldn't seem to look at the news at all, but Eor was keeping me updated. I just this morning looked at what the BBC posted, and giggled a little at their "Idylic Lewiston" headline. Don't judge, let me explain! This guy nearly doubled the homocide rate for the year from what it was last year (and I think last year was a record year for Maine), and he did that singlehandedly and in about an hour, far as I can tell from the BBC timeline. That's horrific and people are in shock. But also, if a few days ago you'd asked anyone in Maine where they thought something like that could or might happen they'd have said, "Lewiston, probably. Maybe Portland." There's a lot of poverty and social tension in that town, and always has been. I have a friend who lives up there, and she tends to say that it's not as bad as people think, but then she gets talking and I start thinking that she's just used to it and knows how to navigate the eddies. She was proud of herself that she didn't get in a fight at a funeral a few weeks ago. (She is in my mind in connection with this event because she's a volunteer firefighter for the town of Greene, and got called up with all the other first responders. They sent her troop to hang out around St. Mary's Hospital. It seems kind of funny to call up firefighters, but I'm sure they felt they needed every hand, and also I'm sure if he'd showed up there they would have handled him.)
Today people are out walking their dogs, again - everyone stayed indoors here in our community, yesterday, until some point in the afternoon when a few cars left. (Yarmouth, where we live now, is almost an hour drive from Lewiston, but an hour drive is pretty much the usual to people from Maine; it's not 'far' to us.) I think that was about the time the news came out that his car was found at a public boat launch along the Androscoggin River. I started to think he'd probably thrown himself in, and that might be what everyone started thinking. He could have swapped cars, he could have decided to take a boat across, or down to Bowdoin where he lived. I don't know, purely speculation. Maybe I kind of fear he went in the river because that might mean it takes even longer to find him.
But man, the pictures of the guy. Could he look more like just any guy from Maine? If they don't find him soon the only guys NOT getting pulled over will be Black.
LL Bean cancelled work yesterday, as did many places, but they also offered that anyone who didn't feel safe at home could shelter at the warehouse, so they must have had security in. Last night just before 9pm they sent out a text listing out which locations would continue to be closed today, but they kind of formatted it wrongly because a lot of people didn't see the period in the middle of the list. It's hard to tell a period from a comma on a text, so break your lists with other words. Very few people are showing up to work at any location, and Eor slept in.
ETA Friday evening: They found his body about a mile up the road from where his car was, behind a building he used to work at, dead of a gunshot wound.
ETA Saturday morning: Looking over this again I realized I never mentioned the shooter's name at all, probably because I figured everyone knows it from all the reporting. But, my aunt added to the family text group that she had been speaking to someone who had to cancel a poetry reading partly because the poet was getting death threats because his name was similar; Robert Carr. People are stupid, what the actual fucking fuck.
All day yesterday I couldn't seem to look at the news at all, but Eor was keeping me updated. I just this morning looked at what the BBC posted, and giggled a little at their "Idylic Lewiston" headline. Don't judge, let me explain! This guy nearly doubled the homocide rate for the year from what it was last year (and I think last year was a record year for Maine), and he did that singlehandedly and in about an hour, far as I can tell from the BBC timeline. That's horrific and people are in shock. But also, if a few days ago you'd asked anyone in Maine where they thought something like that could or might happen they'd have said, "Lewiston, probably. Maybe Portland." There's a lot of poverty and social tension in that town, and always has been. I have a friend who lives up there, and she tends to say that it's not as bad as people think, but then she gets talking and I start thinking that she's just used to it and knows how to navigate the eddies. She was proud of herself that she didn't get in a fight at a funeral a few weeks ago. (She is in my mind in connection with this event because she's a volunteer firefighter for the town of Greene, and got called up with all the other first responders. They sent her troop to hang out around St. Mary's Hospital. It seems kind of funny to call up firefighters, but I'm sure they felt they needed every hand, and also I'm sure if he'd showed up there they would have handled him.)
Today people are out walking their dogs, again - everyone stayed indoors here in our community, yesterday, until some point in the afternoon when a few cars left. (Yarmouth, where we live now, is almost an hour drive from Lewiston, but an hour drive is pretty much the usual to people from Maine; it's not 'far' to us.) I think that was about the time the news came out that his car was found at a public boat launch along the Androscoggin River. I started to think he'd probably thrown himself in, and that might be what everyone started thinking. He could have swapped cars, he could have decided to take a boat across, or down to Bowdoin where he lived. I don't know, purely speculation. Maybe I kind of fear he went in the river because that might mean it takes even longer to find him.
But man, the pictures of the guy. Could he look more like just any guy from Maine? If they don't find him soon the only guys NOT getting pulled over will be Black.
LL Bean cancelled work yesterday, as did many places, but they also offered that anyone who didn't feel safe at home could shelter at the warehouse, so they must have had security in. Last night just before 9pm they sent out a text listing out which locations would continue to be closed today, but they kind of formatted it wrongly because a lot of people didn't see the period in the middle of the list. It's hard to tell a period from a comma on a text, so break your lists with other words. Very few people are showing up to work at any location, and Eor slept in.
ETA Friday evening: They found his body about a mile up the road from where his car was, behind a building he used to work at, dead of a gunshot wound.
ETA Saturday morning: Looking over this again I realized I never mentioned the shooter's name at all, probably because I figured everyone knows it from all the reporting. But, my aunt added to the family text group that she had been speaking to someone who had to cancel a poetry reading partly because the poet was getting death threats because his name was similar; Robert Carr. People are stupid, what the actual fucking fuck.