Facing Gun Violence

By Kate Geiselman

From the Forewords:

"Gun violence in the United States results in the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of people annually. In 2013, there were 33,636 deaths due to injury by firearms, including over 21,000 suicides and 11,000 homicides. In contrast to twenty-two other high-income countries, gun-related homicides is twe

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Facing Project Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734558135

Book preview

1

Like the Book of Job

Dion Green’s story as told to Ria Megnin

May 29, 2019. My daughter and her mother and I were at my house north of Dayton, and we survived a tornado. Destroyed the house around us.

I was always told, you go through a disaster that big, you’ll never be the person you were before then. So I picked up, started trying to build the new me.

Then August 4th happened. Mass shooting in the Oregon District. My dad died in my arms. I hate when they say, It must have been his time. I hate hearing that. I hate hearing that. No, it shouldn’t have been his time.

Now, it’s COVID-19. Everything I was fighting for just got stripped from me again. It’s like the Book of Job . . . 

I’m my dad’s only child. He had a hard life. But me and my dad was close—we’d go fishing, drink, play cards. He always set my poles, ‘cause I don’t have the patience to do all the lines. And he was always my griller at the cookouts. Even the day of the tornado, there was 50 of us at the house; a big Memorial Day cookout. He cooked, and we had a blast.

Sixty days later, August 4th, I was starting to get back ahead in life. I’d quit working all the time, started making time for family. It was my sister’s husband’s birthday. My girlfriend Donita and I picked up my dad, and we all went out to the Oregon District. When we got there, he was asleep in the car, but he said, If you’re going in, I’m going in. He was buying all our drinks, dancing.

When we get outside, me and my dad and Donita, we’re waiting for my sister and her husband to come out. I saw the shooter coming down the side of the building with a gun and a black mask. I’m thinking: This ain’t real. Because why would you do that?There’s all the police around. But he walks in between the cars, brings his guns up and shoots a couple times. My dad hits the ground, but I don’t see any blood. No one panicked yet, so I’m still thinking this ain’t real.

Once he got on the other side of the street, you start to hear the barrage of gunshots. I’m like, Dad, get up. We gotta get out of here.

I grab out my phone and start calling 911. I say, Come on, Dad, get up. He’s just looking at me, wanting to say something to me. I got down by his head and start seeing the blood. I just grab onto him tight and start telling him, I love you. I’m thinking: At least you’ll hear my words telling you I’m there.

The police come, but I don’t want anyone touching me. Once I saw them put the sheet over my dad, I just lost it. I’m angry. I’m slapping. I start beating windows and brick walls. Yelling. I didn’t care about nothing but what was in front of me. We were stepping over bodies, with white sheets and blood, just bodies . . . bodies. It was like a scary scene out of a movie. It didn’t seem real. Even now, I’m still in shock.

My daughter could have lost everybody that night. Three bullets hit my dad, standing right next to me. They probably should have hit me and her mother, but my dad took all three. He saved us. I’m boggled by that. Sometimes I feel bad. Like, Why me? But since I got spared, I’ve got to fight.

I didn’t really take no time. I took three weeks off to handle the funeral, then went right back to work. I wanted to isolate. I didn’t want to talk; I didn’t want to do anything; I didn’t care about nothing. When the tornado came, I wasn’t gonna go to no psychiatrist. Statistically, Black men don’t seek out counseling. That goes back to slavery—they went to church and they moved on. But after the shooting, I said, Dion, you need to go see a counselor. They’re able to unlock things you never could. I got diagnosed with Acute PTSD. My therapist told me, Just write, and that’s where the good came. Forgiving God—for a minute I thought He was coming after me. Forgiving the shooter—I wrote to his parents and told them, If you need to talk, I’ll listen. I forgive you, because they lost both their kids.

I started to fight to represent my father and all the rest of the victims whose lives were taken; to keep their names alive, here and across the nation. My dad used to ring the bell for the Salvation Army, and last year I stood in place for him. I started a nonprofit in his name. I started to speak, going to conferences for 9/11, Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago, trying to turn something negative into something positive. I want all those places to have a survivors’ walk. If tacos can get a Taco Day, why can’t we have a day to keep memories alive, bring in survivors from all avenues of life, let them share their stories together? People hold so much in, they don’t know how to talk about it. But if you talk to someone who’s going through the same thing . . . 

This is all God’s work, with the tornado, the shooting, COVID. We all get to reconnect and get back to the focus point of life: that’s family, that’s friends, that’s community. We’re realizing, we’re stronger together than we are apart.

This is something I’m gonna live with the rest of my life. I’m tired of fighting. But if I change something—not the world, but somebody—maybe it’ll be worth it someday.

2

Unwritten Books

Tom McMurtry’s story as told to Rick Gebhart

Hello, my name is Tom McMurtry. I was working the midnight shift as a Sinclair Community College police officer, the only night shift I had worked all year, when a signal 99 sounded at 1:04 a.m. on August 4th. Signal 99 is a call to all available police to help an officer in distress. I had been sitting and chatting with our dispatcher after making my rounds when a calm but urgent voice broke over the Dayton police radio: Gunshots fired, multiple people shot. It was as if an electric shock coursed through my body. I didn’t hang around to listen to anything else.

As I ran to my cruiser, I called my partner on the radio to check her whereabouts. She had also heard the signal 99 but was on the other side of the river. I couldn’t wait. I would meet her at the crime scene. I jumped into my patrol cruiser and fired up the engine, realizing that every precious second was exactly that—a precious second. I hit the lights, the siren, and the gas, but in what order I do not remember. But as I raced down Third Street, a thousand thoughts flew through my brain, most of which were a reflection from my training. But the thought that rose above the rest was don’t wreck the cruiser.

I parked the vehicle and jumped out. Throngs of Oregon District patrons were running toward me in a panic, due west. That meant that I needed to run due east. I weaved between the frantic waves of wide-eyed humans passing me. As I threaded my way through a sea of confusion and mayhem, I quickly saw where I was needed. A gentleman was lying in the street screaming in pain. I quickly checked his front side and