by Ron Riekki
“Journalist,” I say. The police, polite, waves me over to parking.
I park. I walk. I feel sick. I suspected there would be smoke, but
it’s not that. The sickness comes from what has happened. It’s one
dead, then two, then four, then five, reported on the news, last I’ve
heard. Eight injured, last I’ve heard. I walk towards the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At about 10:45 a.m, the gunman
crashed his truck draped in American flags into the church. I don’t go
to church, normally, rarely, but this morning I went late to 2|42
Community Church in Ann Arbor, so late that the service was over;
I’m guessing no one knew about the Grand Blanc shooting there, how
parishioners went to the truck to help, thinking it was an accident,
then realized it was done on purpose . . . Assault rifle. A rifle made
for assault. Sturmgewehr. The origin, German. Reportedly ‘assault
rifle’ comes from Hitler, from Nazi weapons production. I walk
and I’m sick. This is my sixth mass shooting I’ve gone to, but the first
time the numbers are in the double digits and the worry that it’s going
to turn out to be actually more. I’m allowed to go further, where
the journalists are, and there are journalists. Men behind cameras
that remind me of the David Van Driessen character in Beavis and
Butt-Head, a vibe of peace-loving pacifist, hipster, kind, quiet. I talk
to some of them and they are soft-spoken. Pointing cameras at super-
model females who are eloquent and efficient and focused; I don’t talk
to them and they don’t talk to me. I scribble. The building is hidden
by trees, but the sign is right there, the darkness lit up by police LED lights.
There’s little to see, except maybe five police vehicles, a fire engine,
but they very slowly keep leaving, until, by the end I stand there alone,
with about ten thin orange construction cones and a police officer
guarding the yellow-caution-tape entrance. There’ve been six mass
shootings in the U.S. in the last three days— in Eagle Pass, TX;
both Southport and Raleigh, NC; both New Orleans and Alexandria, LA;
and here. 11 killed, 32 injured. This is getting to be more and more normal.
More and more talk. Less and less action to change things. I scribble.
One of the last remaining telejournalists speaks to the cameraman:
“How about we do the bomb threats?” She is laser focused on the lens,
speaks about “FBI” involvement now. She speaks of “arson.” I stay clear
of her shot. Her Megyn Kelly vibe. It’s 9:14 p.m. The shootings happened
about ten-and-a-half hours ago. They wrap up. Two neighbors walk by.
There are houses. A quiet neighborhood. Middle-class. Long one-
or two-story homes. Simple. Nice. Not extravagant. No Halloween
decorations. I ask the two if they’ll talk to me. They shake their heads no.
I ask a cop if he can answer some questions. No. But Dave, a “photo-
journalist” for a local CBS affiliate talks to me about the bomb threats,
lets me know that “multiple” churches in the area have been receiving
them recently. He tells me of a “bomb squad” looking for “explosive
devices” in the vehicle. The vehicle, I’m assuming, is just yards from us,
on the other side of the trees. Or was. I’m not sure if it was taken away.
He tells me that the “gunman was subdued by DNR,” says how strange
that is. He’s working with camera equipment as he speaks, a talented
multitasker. He moves into his faith. I’m shocked at the transition,
but we’re standing in front of a church that’s just been attacked. I ask
if he gets nervous, covering mass shootings, no, he says, “I have
a very strong faith.” He tells me he’s good at “looking for things out
of place.” He talks about Charlie Kirk and a “spiritual energy” he finds
emerging that’s unstoppable. You sense he is affected by what’s just
happened, not burnt out by the job. He talks about how “professional”
the police have been on-scene. Oddly, he seems happy. This is, after all,
his life, his profession, and you get the impression he’s good at what
he does. Another cameraman sets up equipment nearby. I was alone
for a bit, but new news crews move in. Dave tells me of “people diving”
when the gunman entered and that, inside, parishioners were “doing things
courageously,” “being selfless,” “trying to save people.” He talks of one
“evil” man, but multitudes of the brave. He has to get back to work,
heading to the cones for a closer shot. Walking away, I talk to another
photojournalist eating quickly. He tells me “two more bodies” have
been discovered, says “two were shot” and “two not,” assuming they died
in the fire. I ask if he feels unsafe covering mass shootings. “You have
police presence,” he says. He gives me advice, telling me to follow
whatever officers tell me to do. “They have a tough job,” he says.
The police are all busy. Staying in the journalist area, I’m ignored.
Getting near my car, I see a man broadcasting on his phone. I tell him
journalists can go closer. He says he’s not a journalist, but running
for Governor, that the police won’t allow him to go closer. He tells me
he’s a trucker. I see a live-stream feed on his phone on a tripod.
He holds a candle. I ask him why he’s here. He talks about how
he wants to reduce taxes. It’s the main part of his platform.
I ask how to reduce gun violence. Michelle, a person nearby,
says we need “free mental health.” Six mass shootings with dozens
of people interviewed and she’s the first person to say “free mental health.”
I wonder why it doesn’t come up more. The man who wants to be Governor
agrees. I’m not sure how we stop taxes but then also have free mental health.
Michelle talks of how “domestic violence,” “alcoholism,” “crime” would all
be helped with “free mental health.” She speaks with passion, how insurance
makes it unaffordable. I ask if she has ever had mental health issues she’s
needed assistance with and couldn’t afford care. She says, no, she doesn’t
have any mental health issues. She takes out a vape and hits it. I tell her
that counselors can help with tobacco use disorder. She laughs. I go
to get in my car. 94.7 FM plays Great White’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.”
The city we’re in—Grand Blanc—translates from the French as
Great White. I think of the infamous Great White nightclub fire
in 2003 with 100 killed, 230 injured, after pyrotechnics caused
the building to catch fire. I listen to the rest of the song, Jack Russell
singing “it’s the middle of the night on the open road” and it is
and the hospital comes up soon. There are an unexpected mass
amount of tents set up around the hospital. I walk to one of them.
I’m wondering if it’s a prayer vigil or tents set up for triaging
patients from earlier. It’s neither. I’m surprised to find out
it’s a strike. Except most of the tents are abandoned with PRAYERS
FOR OUR COMMUNITY signs instead. I approach a group of women
in a circle. They don’t want to talk, point for me to try another tent.
I do. Not far from an UNDERSTAFFED IS UNSAFE sign, the nurses
walk up to me. Yes, they want to talk. They tell me about ten-patients-
to-one-nurse ratios. They tell me “we don’t have a psych ward” at
Henry Ford Health. ProPublica lists HFH with a $4.5 billion revenue
in 2023, the CEO making over $3 million in salary. The nurses talk
about safety. They say they’re not interested in talking about pay, but,
rather, the safety of patient-to-nurse ratios, the safety of the patients with
reasonable nursing staff, and safety of keeping nurses from burnout. They
say they were promised this, but Henry Ford Health ignored it. History
keeps popping up. The meaning of names. The strange, again, connection
to Hitler, how Nazis were supposedly fans of Ford’s anti-Semitic writings.
It’s jarring, how Unhealthy that antisemitism is, but, yet, juxtaposing
Henry Ford + Health. With three billboard-size signs with those three
words nearby. I ignore bringing this up and instead ask for solutions.
Quickly, the conversation goes to “prayer.” We talk about church.
I ask, why do mass shooters target schools and churches so frequently?
“For the innocent,” a nurse says. I think about this. It’s two places
where we’re supposed to have safety. I hadn’t thought of that.
The five nurses semicircle around me. They are open. Almost open
wounds. Hurting. I tell one of the nurses I can feel her sadness. She says,
“I’m not doing OK.” I tell the other nurses to give her a hug. They don’t.
They tell me that after COVID people got more distant, the worry is
that people are so distant nowadays, living in a “bubble.” Even Christians,
they tell me. “Befriend people who are loners, lonely,” one nurse says.
They tell me that the hospital here is understaffed, and that “other hospitals”
in the area are “overwhelmed.” Before the shooting. They expand this
to a nationwide problem. I realize that the mass shooting happened
near a hospital with a nursing strike, how much worse this makes it.
They’re already understaffed; now add in that they’re on strike; and,
lastly, add in a mass shooting combined with the entire church catching fire.
A nurse says, “Satan.” They tell me that they “just saw body recovery trucks.”
I ask when the strike will end. They have no idea. I realize there’s a national
issue with nursing understaffing and mass shootings. Both. Nationwide.
Why isn’t this on the news? In fact, the news stories I’ve seen today,
this combination of nursing shortage, strike, mass shooting, and arson,
all combined, isn’t being talked about. Instead, the word the news keeps
saying over and over and over, ad nauseum, is “veteran.” One report
I heard said the shooter was in the Army. Another says Marines. The angle
the news outlets are going with is “veteran.” I want to bring this up,
but the nurses are angry, for good reason, that the nursing shortage
shouldn’t even be happening, because, they tell me, there are “plenty”
of licensed nurses, but the problem is they don’t want to work, due to
the treatment they receive, the level of pay, and the patient ratios.
I ask if any of them has ever responded to a mass shooting. None
of them have. They tell me this hospital is level 3 trauma, that Flint
is prepped to respond to these sorts of incidents, not them. I realize
we have the combination now of 1) nursing shortage, 2) current strike,
3) mass shooting, 4) arson with victims caught in the fire, and 5) this
hospital isn’t even a level 1 trauma hospital. This feels straight out
of The Pitt, or maybe more of Antigone, that this is pure Greek tragedy
with hamartia and anagnorisis and the revelation is that the U.S. does
everything it can to be overloaded with guns and simultaneously
understaffed with hospitals. What a hellish combo. I feel I’m
exhausting the nurses after such a long day. Leaving, I beg them
to give the one nurse who looks so sad a hug. They do. I walk up
to two nurses at the far end, alone, hanging out near a ten-foot tall
Halloween skeleton with a tiny American flag tucked into its hip.
One of the nurses is loquacious and the other, low-key. The first
says she was “at the theater” all day. I don’t know what this means.
Apparently, they turned a local theater into an MCI station. Mass
Casualty Incident. She says MTA buses took the parishioners there.
Why? For “interviewing.” For mental health? Perhaps, but she says,
more as a crime scene. But she adds “crisis counselors were there.”
She says they brought them “water, diapers, food, coloring books
for kids.” I ask how she knew to go there if she was on strike.
“Facebook thread.” Someone posted that there was “suspicion”
“with bombs.” So she headed straight to the theater to help.
I ask what that was like. “Crying, tearful.” She witnessed
a wife being told that a “body was found,” the body being
her husband, and hearing “two kids scream” at the news and
“jumped into the arms of parents.” She tells me of hearing
people asking if their loved ones were found. She tells me of
“sister churches” coming to help people who were “shaking
and crying.” I ask how this gets fixed, the solutions. “I believe
it’s a mental health crisis.” The mental health crisis is simple:
people can’t afford care or it’s not even available if you could
afford it. She’s also upset with “so much hate in media,” saying
she’s sick of hearing the words “fascist” and “Hitler” and “Nazi”
and that sort of language “calls people to action.” She says,
“Everything’s politicized” now and feels “gender or race”
isn’t the point, that the mental health crisis affects everyone.
She’s a vet. Army. She talks about PTSD and that “the military
does not help with that,” so vets turn to “drugs or alcohol.”
Overall, though, she says, “I do blame the news.” I tell her
I’m the news. She laughs. I ask what I should do. She says
we need "neutrality." I don’t tell her The New Verse News
strongly leans left. But, then, I also want to tell her that
true liberals are about diversity, of all viewpoints, that I’m
just collecting voices, ideas for solutions, from everyone
who’ll speak to me. She reiterates this is about understaffing
for substance use disorders and mental health specifically.
She tells stories of how “we just stabilize them and toss them
out,” with no real treatment, if someone comes in with
a mental health disorder. (I text a friend quickly: Still on
scene. This is intense.) She tells me of helping with gunshot
wounds in the military. I realize she was on strike, couldn’t
help; but she tells me, no, nurses did try to go in and assist,
but “administration” told them “no, you need to leave,” so some
of the nurses headed to the theater and, the others, to the scene
of the shooting. She says, “This is why I became a nurse,
to help people.” She’s done this for thirty-seven years.
She’s tired. It’s late. I wave. I walk by tents after tents
after tents after tents, many empty, signs of prayers, pleading
for funding, nurses alone by little heaters or a barrel with fire
inside, smoke in the air. Waiting. They just want to help people.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.
