A local news station became the focal point of the entire planet today for a horrid reason..
Vester Lee Flanagan shot reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, dead live on air during a new story this morning. Vicki Gardner, a woman from the Chamber of Commerce who Parker was interviewing, was also shot in the back but survived and is in stable condition..
Flanagan later went on to shoot himself.. He’s dead. He was a ‘human powder keg’ after the Charleston shooting. He went off ..
The emotions were real at the station. The toll it took on journalists as a whole was evident..
Not only was there live coverage of the shooting that aired across the CBS affiliate, but the killer also had a GoPro camera fixated on his horror while he perpetrated it. He posted it on social media.. the world was suddenly faced with a choice: Watch the video or look away..
I saw the linked video on Drudge today.. And Infowars.. and various locations. I decided to glance at the video one time. I decided, after watching it, it would be the final time in my life I see it. The heartache and heartbreak in the aftermath is true..
The emotion I felt watching the video was nothing but disturbed.. disturbed that someone can do this, equally sickened that so many now will know this reporter and camera man not for being humans, but for being marked targets of a murderer.
The Twitter handle “Bryce Williams” was run by Flanagan, and he used it today to brag about the crime he just committed.
The world has endless madness. Today it was on display ..
This entire situation reminded me, at least a bit, of the famed Pennsylvania politician Bud Dwyer, who took his own life on the air while the entire state watched life news conference of his political statement, and then on air suicide. That was a shocking event that changed the psyche of those who saw it live.
This will be, as well, for those who saw it. In the social media universe we live in, the deaths will play out over and over again with each YouTube upload and Twitter feed that shameless features the grotesque video.
This event is tragic.. There are lots of tragic events.
But something especially awful occurs when a quaint and peaceful news report is interrupted by horror and madness. That is exactly what happened today.
Those who saw it live will not be able to forget it.