Before I began a career in higher education, I was a teacher in the public schools. At various times throughout my career I taught just about everything from kindergarten through high school. I’d like to share a story about something that happened to me when I was in my fourth year of teaching. (And I promise that my next post will go back to my usual topics!)
Eight years ago I was teaching sixth grade in Brimfield Ohio. This was such a small town that it had to combine with another local town to form one complete school district. Brimfield and Suffield, or Field, as it is known, were one of those places you used to see on 1950’s sitcoms. It was and is a place where neighbors know each other and sometimes even leave their doors unlocked when they run out on an errand. The kind of place where kids have an idyllic childhood and nothing bad ever happens, until January 2005. I still remember that last day, Friday January 21st. My English class had been doing a unit on poetry, and we traveled across the school to a second grade class to share what we’d learned. My kids acted as teachers to small groups of students teaching a lesson based on the poem “If I Were in Charge of the World” by Judith Viorst. The second graders created their own “If I Were…” poems and illustrated them. We’d “adopted” this class a few months before and most Fridays we’d get together, in either their classroom or ours, for some fun learning activities. We played educational games or read together, and my students acted as big buddies. It was a great project and a great self-esteem boost for my students who were all considered learning disabled. That Friday went really well, and I remember leaving feeling particularly pleased with my students and what we’d accomplished.
The next morning was a typical day for Ohio in January, cold but only partly cloudy. I was still warm and cozy in my pajamas, getting ready to start lesson planning and grading papers, so I could be done when my husband got off work later that afternoon, when the phone rang. It was unusual for us to be getting a call on a Saturday morning, but I don’t remember any particular sense of dread as I picked it up. The voice on the other end immediately ended all cozy good feelings. It was my contact on the phone tree at work; I knew immediately something big must be wrong-why else call on a weekend? She told me that it had been activated to let all the teachers know that one of our students and his mother had been killed the night before. My heart sank. And as she went on to explain what happened, I sank. Sliding down the wall to the floor I clutched the phone sure that I was dreaming-this couldn’t be true, not in Brimfield. It seemed that the mother’s boyfriend had shot them both before leading the police on an overnight manhunt which ended with him taking a young college student hostage in her apartment and finally killing her before the police stormed the building. Then the teacher on the phone told me his name. If anything could make this tragedy
worse, it was the words she said next. Dakota Bauer was one of the students in that second grade class we had visited the day before. While I hadn’t yet learned all their names, I knew Dakota. He was a bright light, a happy, sweet, and amazing kid who stood out in a crowd. I remembered him showing me his poem and being so proud of himself. Just yesterday. Not even 24 hours ago and now he was dead. His light extinguished forever in a hail of bullets.
Sadly this is the best photo of Dakota that I could find online and it doesn't allow me to enlarge it. |
For me the next few days were a haze of grief. As we learned more about what happened it just got harder and harder to deal with it all. I tried to be strong for my students, but honestly how do you help them understand when you can’t make sense of it yourself? I still remember bits and pieces. Visiting Mrs. Knippenberg’s class to comfort each other. The counselors coming in and talking to my kids. Writing letters to Dakota’s father. Going to the (closed casket) visitation at the funeral home. Mr. Bauer's Spider Man tee-shirt (not exactly typical at a funeral home but it was the last Christmas present his son ever gave him). And some good things too-lots of hugs. Manny, the "therapy" dog. Everyone comforting each other. I also remember a conversation I had with someone on the outside. On Monday nights I took a Tai Chi class at the community center. The only other student in the class was the county coroner. He and I talked about the murders a little. Before it became too much for either of us he told me that it was one of the most horrific things he’d ever witnessed. Roger had been a child in the Philippines during WWII and seen some pretty atrocious and violent things. He had also been coroner for a number of years, but the sight of that little boy, clutching his teddy bear, and wrapped in his mother’s arms caused even this strong man to break down.
By the time the trial started we had moved to North Carolina. I tried to forget, but I couldn’t help following it online. As each new fact came to light it just became more and more horrible to read, but I couldn’t stop. You see, this was a tragedy that never should have happened. Not just because these people didn’t deserve to die, but because their murder, James Trimble, was a convicted felon who was not legally allowed access to fire arms. At one point the prosecution laid his guns out on a table before the jury, guns he had managed to obtain through loopholes in the gun laws. Although only two were used in the actual murders, in total he owned more than 20 guns including an AK-47 assault rifle. Thirteen bullets entered the body of Renee Bauer, and eight were found in Dakota. The defense tried to argue that Dakota was an accident, and if his mother hadn’t been holding him he wouldn’t have died because most of those bullets passed through her body into his. Fortunately the jury didn’t fall for this. Trimble was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to death.
Now, almost eight years to the day since Renee and Dakota Bauer and Sarah Positano were brutally murdered in their homes James Trimble sits on death row. His lawyers haven’t exhausted all their appeals, but I have faith that the system will work and his sentence will eventually be carried out. In the years since we’ve all moved on. My former students have graduated from high school and Dakota’s former classmates are sophomores. They are getting ready for learners permits, proms, girl and boyfriends, college, and a life beyond school-all things Dakota will never experience. I’ve embarked on two new careers and had a child of my own. In a few months she’ll be seven and in second grade, the same age Dakota was when he died. I also can’t help but think of Sarah. Although I didn’t know her, she was only a few years younger than me and an education major. What would have become of her? Would she be married? Have kids of her own? She was only four months away from earning her degree. Would she have stayed in that area? Maybe even taught in my district? We’ll never know because James Trimble took those opportunities away. One night. Two guns. Three lives lost.
So if you ask me if I’m in favor of gun control, the answer is a resounding “YES!” I have always been a proponent of small government, equal rights, and upholding the constitution. I think that the government has a tendency to overregulate to the detriment of its people. I don’t believe that we need to abolish the second amendment and completely outlaw guns. I know plenty of people who shoot and hunt responsibly. My cousin is one of those people. He owns guns and likes to hunt. I don’t want to stop him (heaven knows we need to do something about the overpopulation of deer). But it’s his increasingly angry posts on Facebook, along with some less heated comments by friends, that have prompted me to write about my experience. You see, I don’t object to people owning guns IF they are legally allowed to. I object to the loopholes that allow convicted felons like James Trimble and the mentally ill Sandy Hook, Colorado theater, and Arizona shooters to own weapons. And no, I can’t see a reason why people need to own assault rifles and automatic weapons. These are only good for hunting one kind of prey-the human kind. And before you post something about the need to protect ourselves in case of a government uprising let me say this: In 1776 we began a war with England using the same weapons they had. We won because of a combination of strategy, effective leadership, and fate. In 2013, if we were to rise up against our government we would be crushed. Even if every single household had an assault rifle we would be no match for the tanks, bazookas, nuclear bombs, and other advanced weaponry our government controls. So it doesn’t really matter if your AK-47 has a ten round clip or a Rambo bullet belt-it just isn’t going to happen.
I have one other point. A lot of people have said that if there had been an armed guard at Sandy Hook this tragedy wouldn’t have happened. I also adamantly oppose the thought of armed men wandering around schools. We’ve seen that an armed guard didn’t stop the Columbine massacre, even though he engaged with at least one of them as they were walking into the school. Being in one of the most heavily armed places in this country surrounded by people who were trained in combat didn’t stop the Fort Hood shooter. And having access to more than 20 guns didn’t save Renee or her son. She was killed because she was leaving an abusive boyfriend. An abusive boyfriend who owned more than 20 guns and she surely could have gotten one had she wanted to before he started shooting.
On Monday we will celebrate a holiday dedicated to one of the greatest peacemakers of the last century, maybe of all time. Also on that day three families will mark the eighth anniversary of the violence that shattered their lives forever. I can’t help but think about them and the families of the 240,000 other people who have been killed by guns in this country in the past eight years. I can’t help but wonder what would have been if we had had the guts to stand up to the NRA and gun lobbyists eight, nine, or ten years ago. We have that opportunity now. The ability to say, “Enough is enough and we won’t tolerate another 240,000 or 2,400 or even 2 more deaths by gun violence when we can do something to stop it.” Won’t you please stand with me and do something for Dakota? For Renee? For Sarah? For all the other children we’ve lost and could lose if we don’t do something?
To those of you who own guns legally and responsibly, I don’t want to trample on your rights. Buy guns. Go hunting. Go to the shooting range. Protect your family if it comes to that. I respect your right to do so. Because stronger gun control laws aren’t going to infringe on your right to do those things, but they might just save the next Sandy Hook, Colorado, Arizona, or Dakota.
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