So once again the bar on murder has been raised in the United States.
There almost seems to be a steady race to set a new Guinness Book Of World Records listing on the largest number of merciless murders because periodically “the worst shooting in the United States” is a new one with a higher body count. The latest is the Virginia Tech massacre, which is now the largest mass murder in American history, committed by 23-year-old South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui.
What will follow? Mass media (and new media) coverage. Commentary. Searches for solutions and some politicization. Unspeakable grief that will literally shatter lives (each butchered person had family, friends and acquaintances and touched many lives). And, most likely, a little less freedom as additional safeguards and regulations are put into place to protect human beings from other human beings in colleges and in schools.
Yet, it’s part of a pattern: from the Columbine High School murders some years ago to the infamous San Ysidro massacre of more than 20 years ago, the murderers who could care less about ending the life of a child, teenager, 20-something or elderly man or woman have butchered some freedoms and the perception that some places that are “given” safe havens in an often-threatening life.
I was personally drawn into record-setting murders — the infamous July 18, 1984 San Ysidro massacre in which James Huberty told his wife he was going “hunting for humans,” and left his apartment, walked down to the corner McDonald’s that was literally minutes away and, in 77 minutes that to those inside must have seemed like a lifetime, murdered 21 people — ages 8 months to 74 years old.
Here’s my account of seeing how a tragedy such as that unfolded…and how the ripples spread out through society and families on both sides of the border. And, at the end of this article, I’ll make some predictions on what will likely happen with the Virginia Tech case.
I was interviewing a diplomat in San Diego when I got the call to immediately return to the main office on Camino de la Reina at the San Diego Union, where I worked as a reporter. The paper called me and everyone and his mother (and sister) in on the story. The paper was already stretched to the max since a team of reporters was out of town covering the Olympics and another team was covering the political conventions.
That had been the worst mass murder at that time. And you could see the impact:
THE MEDIA: Media haters think that in a story like this the news media only wants to get sensationalistic stuff and doesn’t care about the human beings involved. WRONG. Most reporters were sickened by what happened. But on a history-making story, newspapers and other media slip into instant historian modes — trying to get every, single tidbit of information, talk to every expert, get every detail of the events and communicate to their readers or viewers the event, the significance and the emotions. The reporters are supervised by the editors, who are supervised by The Editor who is supervised by The Publisher. Day to day reporting is the daily job; a huge story is recording history and a large element of professional pride and duty to readership/viewership kicks in.
And so it was in this crisis. Then City Editor Marcia McQuern (the most impressive person I worked with in my newspaper career) drafted me to sit at a desk and be one of the line editors. She was a remarkable journalist and manager (she now works at a university in California, after moving on to the Riverside Press Enterprise where she became publisher and later retired). She peppered the staff with new questions, noted “holes” in aspects of the story that needed to be filled in immediately, dispatched reporters and constantly checked on editors and teams of reporters.
She once told someone that during the story she plowed ahead, focusing on essentially reorganizing the reporting staff and mobilizing it for the massive newsgathering and news packaging operation. And when it was over, the horror of the event that she had covered hit her multifold. We all felt horror, and sickening grief and were almost incredulous as we covered a story about unspeakable barbarity (but we HAD to speak about it..).
The longtime police reporter was among the first on the scene. He told several people at the time that he did not want to talk about what he had seen. This doesn’t fit the stereotype of the unfeeling journalist that some seemingly have a vested political interest in pressing…but it was a fact. Those who went inside the restaurant and saw the carnage were shaken.
The Los Angeles Times, national news organizations, broadcast news, foreign news reporters…all were in San Diego to find out what happened, why and how the families and communities would cope. There was intense competition. But this wasn’t just about selling newspapers or gaining viewership. It was a competition to present the most complete reports about the events, responses impacts and emotions.
Why emotions?
Because lives were LOST and reporting was a way of paying homage to those whose lives were snuffed out on an afternoon when they had simply strolled into a restaurant to have a burger and fries. It was a way to chronicle the extent of the loss…who each of them were as persons…what kind of good acts they had done in life…..what they meant to others and how the world would be so very much poorer due to their deaths…and how fate (again) reminded us all that we’re never, ever guaranteed more than the very moment we are in. Which could end at any time.
THE CORPORATE RESPONSE: First reports called it the “McDonald’s Massacre” but the McDonald’s corporation made it clear via their spokesmen that they did not feel that was correct or fair. Media editors apparently agreed, because it soon became known as San Ysidro massacre — as it is known to this day.
And then there was a second concern. What if a year later someone decided to do a copy cat murder at the restaurant?
McDonald’s dealt with that by tearing down the restaurant, rebuilding it down the street, and donating the land from the old restaurant to a local college. (To this day you can still see bullet holes in the nearby Post Office and in a nearby fence).
THE DECIMATED FAMILIES: One of the most haunting images for all of us was of a young boy laying next to his bike — dead after being shot off it by Huberty (a sniper later took Huberty out). Families were impacted on both sides of the border since the restaurant was a stone’s throw from Tijuana and its customers were largely Hispanic.
A year or so later I was drafted to do the dreaded anniversary story — and asked to go into Baja California to find the relatives of Huberty’s murdered Mexican victims and ask (believe it or not) how they felt a year after.
All I could think of was the husbands, wives, and parents who I had met a year before on my little corner of the story that I had to report. I remembered the tears and how I realized their lives would never be the same. And we were going to back a year later and ask them how they felt?
It is a VALID news story: the one year after, the five years after and the 10 years after. But I knew I was due for a career change when I asked an editor. “Why are we DOING this story?” The editor said: “Because the L.A. Times could do it first.” And my answer meant it was time for me to start thinking about a change. I replied: “So let them.”
THE IMPACT: For many in the San Diego area, immediately after the fast-food restaurant murders, going to a fast food restaurant never seemed quite as safe. I was in the Big Brother program and my then 12-year-old Little Brother would half-joke about not sitting with his back to the door. Meanwhile, there were unconfirmed reports about restaurants quietly putting special emergency procedures in place to react swiftly if something like this happened again.
So what does all this mean for the Virginia Tech murders?
And what about the dorm where the bulk of murders were committed? Will it be closed down? Will the rooms where people were killed still be used?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.