In one of the more bizarre episodes of my life, a guy with an assault rifle walked into my favorite local pizza joint yesterday. The pizza joint in question has been the focus of crazy online conspiracy theories linked to the election. The man with the assault rifle went in to "investigate" whether the conspiracy theories were true. He fired one round before the cops arrived, and, thankfully, no one was hurt.
Josh and I happened to be in the area at the time. We saw cop cars really booking it up Connecticut Ave for over an hour and actually guessed what had happened. We had just been to this pizza place the day before. We had pizza and salad and beers, and remarked on how much more crowded it was than usual, surmising that the neighborhood had come out to support the restaurant in light of the online insanity. And the next day, somebody walked in with an assault rifle and fired.
I can't quite wrap my mind around this. Regular street crime is not something I worry about, probably because I've lived relatively closely with it my whole life. I can't excuse it, but I do understand something about the logic of it and what it feels like. But this is an adult man who, by his own admission, drove up from North Carolina with multiple weapons in his car to investigate rumors of a child sex trafficking ring run by a presidential candidate and her advisors out of the back of a neighborhood pizza restaurant. He walked into a restaurant full of children with an assault rifle because he believed this lie was the truth. This is simply beyond my comprehension. My first instinct is to make a joke out of it, it's so ridiculous.
But it's not funny. Whatever this man's individual issues, this happened because of a depth of ignorance that is terrifying. I don't see how there can be any antidote to it.
Josh and I happened to be in the area at the time. We saw cop cars really booking it up Connecticut Ave for over an hour and actually guessed what had happened. We had just been to this pizza place the day before. We had pizza and salad and beers, and remarked on how much more crowded it was than usual, surmising that the neighborhood had come out to support the restaurant in light of the online insanity. And the next day, somebody walked in with an assault rifle and fired.
I can't quite wrap my mind around this. Regular street crime is not something I worry about, probably because I've lived relatively closely with it my whole life. I can't excuse it, but I do understand something about the logic of it and what it feels like. But this is an adult man who, by his own admission, drove up from North Carolina with multiple weapons in his car to investigate rumors of a child sex trafficking ring run by a presidential candidate and her advisors out of the back of a neighborhood pizza restaurant. He walked into a restaurant full of children with an assault rifle because he believed this lie was the truth. This is simply beyond my comprehension. My first instinct is to make a joke out of it, it's so ridiculous.
But it's not funny. Whatever this man's individual issues, this happened because of a depth of ignorance that is terrifying. I don't see how there can be any antidote to it.
3 comments:
:(. I know, I don't know what to say about it either. And Comet is such an innocuous place to be the target of such insanity.
Ooh my gosh! Saw the headline the other day, but didn't read more. So glad everyone is OK.
Yup, pretty crazy. It's a wonder no one was hurt!
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