St. Bernard Shootings

This link is a news story that's running about the animal victims in the St. Bernard schools shooting.

It's been nearly two years and I still can't read these articles without being right back in those rooms again.

Here's what I remember (and apologies if you read this in an earlier posting--below, keep scrolling) and what's still fresh in my mind...

The school was dark, and sunlight was disappearing quickly. We entered on the ground level, in a swift, but quiet fashion. We didn't know where to look, yet were already in fear of what we'd see. We'd spent weeks rescuing animals and had seen our share of very sad stories of the dead and wounded. We were accustomed to hard situations and loss upon loss, but the feeling that afternoon was different. Unbelievable, somehow.

No one spoke as we made our way quietly up the stairs, carefully looking around us and watching our feet. No one wanted to inadvertently misstep.

Up the stairs, we saw the first note--Angel's note. A telling notice scrawled across the stairwell wall in marker, "...Please do not shoot her. Her name is Angel..." By now you've all read about the infamous wall writing, but seeing it that day felt unimaginable. Though I stood on the floor in front of it--mind going numb, heart guarded--I still had hope...hope that what I would find would not match the gruesome story conjured on the wall. I still believed the words might not have come true.

Ascending the stairs just a few steps would stop me cold. The dog that lay before me was not what I was prepared to see. I knew they had been shot, and I had seen my share of departed animals in the weeks prior, but this, oh...this was nothing short of a massacre. It was clear from that first glance that this dog's tragic end had come as he was RUNNING AWAY. He'd almost made it downstairs and instead was shot cold on the landing and left to die a horrific death. It was awful.

Oh, it was awful.

And it never got easier.

What I remember most vividly, however, was the way my boots stuck to the floor. The congealed blood made sticking sounds and I could feel the pull of my feet to the floor with each step. There is a smell associated with the blood as well, and I associate one with the other. To me, it's the sound and smell of unnecessary and tragic carnage, and I don't think I'll ever forget the memory of it.

There were other horribly tragic scenes in that school, as well as other local schools, yet I can't write about them tonight. It opens wounds for me that are easily scratched raw again in just a few minutes. I still suffer when I think back to that awful day. I still can't believe that what I saw was real. I still can't believe we live in a world where such mindblowing carnage was allowed to happen--and when it did, the news of the tragedy barely made a dent in the overall media coverage.

Once upon a time, a thriving and incredibly advanced society fell because its people were too involved in their own lives to notice that the civilization they'd created was crumbling before them. Let me tell you...On the day I entered St. Bernard Parish and witnessed the aftermath of an inexcusable tragedy, the ghosts of the Roman Empire were present. When those many dogs fell, they left a message loud and clear....What we seek to, and let destroy, will destroy us in turn.

If you are reading this, do not stay silent. Do not sit still. Be the voice of those animals who so tragically lost their lives that day. Do not let their deaths keep you quiet.

Let us all learn from these mistakes, whoever we are.