Napa and Columbine

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day when two teenage boys entered the Columbine High School, carrying duffel bags that contained the guns and home-built propane bombs they would use to wantonly attack their fellow students. What followed is one of the deadliest school shooting in US history; an event that shook up the nation, sparked a cultural debate, inspired a movie, and created a term that has become synonymous with school shootings all around the world: Columbine.

Today also marks the day that an armed man walked across the Napa Valley Collage campus (my wife’s school), putting the college under a total lockdown, with SWAT teams and helicopters combing the perimeter for the suspect.

The incidents are not related. The man in Napa robbed a nearby bank, drove his car to the college and left it there – triggering the police response as he walked around the campus. But for me, the incident added a whole new level of perspective to a day that would otherwise have flown by without as much as a nod (“Wow, 10 years already!”). We hear about screwed up events all the time. Additional school shootings have happened since the events that transpired in Columbine, some of them deadlier than the shooting 10 years ago. But the simple fact is, none of them really hit home. And I’m debating if they should have. These days, we are continuously being bombarded with news from all over the world (usually bad ones). No need to wait for the morning paper or the evening news: CNN.com and ubiquitous RSS feeds evenly spread the information barrage across the day. And we couldn’t function if we let all those remote events affect our daily lives. Paranoia would set in, unhealthy and unconstructive decisions would be made in its wake (look no further than the aftermath of 9/11 for a case study).

At the same time it’s important to stay informed, not to be ignorant of the world. So that’s the thin line that we walk today: being aware without necessarily caring. It’s a tricky situation to be in, but I guess it’s a good problem to have.

As I write this post, details at the college are still coming in and the search is ongoing. Victoria is locked up in her office with as many students as she could find, and everybody is passing the time by doing homework and checking the web for updates. I can honestly say that I’m not too worried about my wife’s well-being. The guy dropped his backpack in the bathroom just across her office, but he probably fled the campus hours ago. With police on the scene and all buildings locked up, the chance of anything bad happening are incredibly slim.

Even so, I have been worried. Worried in a way that’s only possible when you’re directly affected by an event. When the wall of objective reporting has been torn down, and irrational and unfounded fears are allowed to creep into your thoughts. And that’s what I take away from this, the 10th anniversay of the Colombine Highschool shootings: a feeling of sympathy and personal understanding. Because for a few hours, and on a much smaller scale, I was able to catch a glimpse of what hundreds of Columbine families went through when the shootings happened. And no matter how far removed that event might have been – I know that nobody should have to go through that.

Addendum: The main suspect was actually hiding in the college library and was talked into surrendering. The search for a second guy is still on.