771: The Parents Step In
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It's a American life from W.B. E.C. Chicago, I'm a hot glass. So there's a whole infrastructure that springs into action when a mass shooting happens. There's the police and SWAT teams, of course, the Red Cross, the Billy Graham Prayer Truck, therapy dogs, and there's this couple who shows up, this couple whose daughter died in a mass shooting, and they come, and what they do seems to be very effective. I don't need to tell you that our government has utterly failed at any kind of response to stop school shootings and mass shootings. In the wake of that nothingness, that non-response, parents of children who've died have stepped in in various ways. Today on our show we have two stories for you about parents like these. In the second half hour of our show we have a dad from Sandy Hook who jumped into action after his son was killed, that just took extraordinary measures, and got results. But we're going to begin with this story about that couple, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips. They're out in the belt of Texas this week, they headed there straight from Buffalo where of course 10 people were killed earlier this month in a grocery store. Their daughter, Jesse, died back in 2012 when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. And since then, they've organized their lives to be able to reach out to other parents like themselves. We did this story back in 2018, right after school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, but really nothing has changed since we first aired this. I was really listening to this story this week, and one thing that really hit me is how deeply it takes you into the place that, I don't know, speaking for myself, I find myself thinking about all the time right now, which is what the parents and families in Nevada, Texas are going through. One of our producers, Miki Meek, put this together and spent time with the Phillipses. Sandy and Lonnie Phillips have traveled to eight mass shootings since Aurora. They started with Sandy Hook, then Isla Vista, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, and then Santa Fe, Texas, which is where I met up with them in May, right after a student walked into the high school and killed 10 people. They pulled up in front of the school in their truck. Even though they've done this a lot, Sandy told me the discomfort and awkwardness they feel about showing up like this in a community has never gone away. But in Santa Fe, they just launched themselves in any way. They're each wearing a big button with a photo of their daughter, Jessie, smiling. A memorial had just gone up on a big grassy lawn out front. There were 10 wood crosses, each with a red heart, and a photo of the student or teacher who'd been killed. People were starting to leave teddy bears, flowers, and balloons. What the Phillips do here is just talk to whoever wants to talk. They figure that'll lead them to families they might be useful to. And within seconds of getting out of their truck, they bump into a day's teenage girl wearing shorts in a Santa Fe high school soccer t-shirt. Excuse me, how are you doing? I'm not okay. In here, the sound gets muffled, because Sandy's tiny mite gets crushed when they hug. It's the main sound I remember from that day. No, you're just so sorry. This has happened to you and your friends and your families and your community. Thank you so much.
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