The shooting in Chattanooga is still going. Police and news reports focused attention on the big ones - the nightclub and tourism spot shootings. But make no mistake: That wasn't all there was. Try these numbers on for size. In just the first half of June since Memorial Day weekend, Chattanooga gunfire resulted in four deaths, 29 injuries, and at least two people shot at but uninjured.
Of course, it isn't just Chattanooga. Nor is it just large, mid-sized cities or small towns. It's "an American problem," as a piece from The Washington Post noted last week, opining that "no one is talking about solutions, as the country whipsaws between talk of police reform and the symptoms of entrenched, systemic issues increasingly erupting in violence."
We beg to differ. People are talking about solutions. Lawmakers maybe not so much. But people are. We here in Chattanooga are.
The trouble is - there is no one solution. Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly has made that clear by highlighting plans ranging from increased police surveillance and initiatives to expanded early childhood learning programs.
Still, the shooting locally continues and - sadly - will continue until our nation's lawmakers - and Tennessee's - drop their coziness with guns and the gun lobby. And until, as Chattanooga Police Department Capt. Jerri Sutton told us last week, we get back to the basics of caring for people and the basics of human civility.
***
Last week, mass violence broke out here at 1:12 a.m. Sunday on Station Street in the Southside - in front of the Blue Light nightclub near the Chattanooga Choo Choo.
There was an argument - drinks were thrown, people were told to leave the bar, and then outside, shots rang out. Two women, ages 29 and 30, were injured.
Two weeks before that, on another early Sunday morning, June 5, a large crowd gathered in the street near Mary's Bar & Grill on McCallie Avenue. Gunfire erupted, ending with a mass shooting that left three people dead and 14 injured - some struck by cars, but most by bullets. Police later said another shooting late Saturday night injuring three people, as well as a large fight on Station Street two hours later, were part of the timeline leading up to the McCallie Avenue shooting. Three men are charged in the McCallie incident.
And a week before all of that another mass shooting shook us - this one on Memorial Day weekend involving two groups of teens near the downtown end of the Walnut Street Bridge. Six teens, ages 13-15, were injured - two critically. Two other teens are charged, and the district attorney has petitioned to prosecute them as adults.
Just a few hours earlier, three people in a car, including a 9-year-old, on Fort Street were injured after they realized their car was being fired upon.
Sandwiched after those big shootings were at least five others, according to statements released by police.
- On June 8, someone shot into a car on Idlewild Drive. The man and child inside were uninjured.
- On June 12 a car on Citico Avenue took gunfire. Arriving officers found a 21-year-old woman who'd been in the car with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. But in a house nearby, a 71-year-old man had also been hit as he sat inside. He later died.
- On June 14, a couple's argument ended with the man shooting the woman in the leg. She survived; police charged him with domestic simple assault and other crimes.
- On June 15, in the 400 block of Tacoa Avenue, a 23-year-old man told police he was walking when he was shot. He survived and little else is known.
- That same day, in the 7000 block of McCutcheon Road, police found a 24-year-old woman with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. Police said details there also were unclear.
***
Chattanooga, like most cities, has long had shootings.
This is different. People mowed down at one time in a street by shooters armed with AR-style guns is different.
"Guns are everywhere, and your state legislature has just made it even easier for you have a gun," Capt. Sutton said last week in a phone interview with this editor. "People marvel at the level of violence that's going on, and I don't know why. ... You no longer have to have a license to carry, so just about anybody can get their hands on a gun, legally or not. And then when tempers flare, people are choosing - regardless of whether it's in a nightclub, outside of a nightclub, at a grocery store, at a convenience store, at the mall - they are choosing violence over civil conversation or disagreement."
A second thing that is different locally - at least in three of the recent shootings (including the two mass shootings) - is that charges have been filed.
That says to us new police tactics may be working - tactics such as focused deterrence roundups, searches and citations. In two weeks, for instance, police reported seizing 26 guns, according to department tallies.
But it also says to us that at least some in the public sphere appear finally to be fed up with flying bullets. The community that once was determined to remain quiet about violent gun crimes is perhaps now growing more determined to have peace.
The fact the city has so many new surveillance cameras and systems doesn't hurt, either.
But one thing is certain, Sutton says: "We can't just arrest our way out of this." There are not enough jails or prisons - either for first-time offenders or the 50th-time offenders.
"We can talk about social programs, but those social programs are only going to benefit those who aren't too far gone and if they choose to take them. We can talk about the lack of parenting or supervision ... but until we start addressing those parents, that's not going to change. We can talk about social justice reform. We can talk about the laws in the state of Tennessee, but people violate the law every day."
All that, she said, brings us back to human civility.
"Everybody wants to point a finger at something, someone, as to what the problem is. But if we as individuals aren't willing to accept responsibility for some part ... in this whole thing, then it's not going to change. ... I hear older people say, 'Well, back when I was young -' The kids today don't live [like we or our parents] used to live. Somebody's kids raising themselves is not their fault. ... Poverty 50 years ago does not look like poverty today."
Sutton describes youngsters who don't have a place to lay their heads at night. Don't have anything to eat. Are staying where bullets are flying in the daytime and at night.
"At some point you get desensitized to that," Sutton said. "So, we're gonna start jailing and punishing people because of their life circumstances? You know things like that shape your psyche."
In The Washington Post piece, which is about a Juneteenth celebration that erupted into gunfire, a former D.C. officer described the American shooting problem as being about dreams deferred, generational trauma, mental illness and "the result of upstream failures."
Sutton's description is more specific and graphic.
"It's easy for suburban soccer moms whose youngsters are in structured activities to look down on a mother of five who lives in the projects. Well, you don't know when she had her babies. You don't know if she had somebody present at the time or not. You don't know what she was taught about contraception in her formative years or not. You don't know what she's having to do to feed those kids or not. You don't know what those kids are having to do to help her or not. ... Most people are doing the best they can because what they're doing is all they know. So until we as a society do more to educate our people on the fundamentals of life, and why our norms [civility, kindness, caring and education, for example] are important, we're going to continue to see this [desensitization and violence] grow."
She said a mentor once told her: We as a society have grown weaker and wiser.
"Technology has made us much wiser, but as a society, we are weak. We're weak in our values, We're weak in our morals. We're weak in our systems. And it's inequitable across the board. I don't care what political affiliation you are, you have the haves and have nots. And the more the have nots don't have, the more they're going to try to have. And they'll do that by taking. It's survival.
"So the question is, how do we get back to the basics ... the basics of race and our people, the basics of taking care of people, the basics of being high-minded, the basics of helping and caring," she said. "I don't have the answer."
We don't have the answer, either. There isn't just one answer.
But we do know this: It will take all of us to find the pathway forward. And now is the time.