Saturday, August 3, 2019, I was at this high end store in a mall in Dallas, Texas, United States of America, doing my thing. As a matter of fact, I was at a department of the store I felt was my last stop for the day, having exhausted myself, checking on some items.
And while I was rushing to conclude my transactions, this pretty white young lady approached me with a question: “Have you heard of the mass shooting in El Paso, today?”
My initial reaction was that of surprise because I had no idea what she was talking about and told her so. She would then go on to explain that hundreds of people had been shot at a Walmart and shopping centre in El Paso.
El Paso? The name didn’t instantly ring a bell, although I would soon realise it is a city and county seat of El Paso County located in the far western part of the State of Texas. Obviously a Spanish name, El Paso with a population estimate of 682,669, is largely inhabited by Latinos and is a border town between the United States and Mexico.
Anyway, the lady that approached me with the question, who looked every inch Hispanic, appeared so unsettled and somewhat panicky. It was such that by the time I got to the checkout counter where she was stationed, she was all sweaty. And this was right inside a building so chilled that I was feeling so cold, despite the Texas summer heat outside!
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The obviously disturbed young lady must have been feeling so bad and actually asked if other people around were feeling as hot as she was.
Nonetheless, she rung me up, making a couple of mistakes in the process that I had to draw her attention to them. It was not until I got to the house later on that I got a clearer picture of the El Paso incident.
Twenty people were confirmed killed and more than two dozen others injured in a mass shooting at the El Paso shopping center. The story was all over the news channels, but casualty rate was not in hundreds as the lady at the store, who I now guess may be from El Paso or has relations there, had mentioned.
The most heartbreaking part of the tragic incident was the bit about a mother who died while shielding her 2-month-old baby, while the father also died shielding them both, thus living the infant, who got some fingers broken, an orphan in such a manner.
As it were, a 21-year-old white man from Allen, a suburb of Dallas, about 1, 046Km drive away, was reported to have committed the crime, which initially claimed 20 lives that later increased to 22, as I write.
One striking thing for me though was the fact that the shooter was immediately taken into police custody, with authorities potentially looking at bringing capital murder charges against him. And because an anti-immigrant document espousing white nationalist and racist views was found by the police and believed to have been written by the suspect, he may also face hate crime charges, after due investigation, that is.
The other striking thing was the fact that first call of an active shooter went out at 10:39 a.m. local time with the first officer arriving the scene six minutes later. If this had happened in our clime, the victims and all those within the vicinity at the time, most of who hid under tables, shelves and practically anywhere possible……dem go wait taya!
Multiple agencies that also responded to the scene included the FBI, the sheriff’s department, the state Department of Public Safety and Border Patrol. All these in minutes!
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would later on hold a news conference in an adjacent shopping mall to where the incident occurred and among other things, mournfully noted that “Lives were taken who should still be with us today.”
President Donald Trump, also on Wednesday, visited the city to condole with the people, amidst opposition, though, as it alleged that his racist dispositions towards immigrants, especially Mexicans, who form a good number of residents of El Paso, exposes them to such (racist) shootings. The president was also in Ohio, which also witnessed similar shooting some hours after El Paso. He had earlier read a statement on the shootings, Monday, from the White House that became a subject of national debate on what he said, how he said them, the things he didn’t say and how he ought to have said or not say them.
That is how much life, I mean American life, matters to their leaders. And I just could not but wonder how similar incident, God forbids, would have been handled in Nigeria, though that kind of madness is not our brand. But fact remains that every act of terror is simply what its, the process or style, notwithstanding.
Incidentally, the mass shooting in El Paso was one of two in the United States(as earlier stated) in 13 hours that weekend, as another gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine, including his own sister, in a 30-second rampage. This was at a popular entertainment district about 1 a.m. Sunday. Twenty-seven other people were injured when the Ohio shooter was said to have fired dozens of shots. The motive, as reported, remained unclear, as I write.
But Dayton Police, which released a timeline of the early morning shooting, revealed that the shooter opened fire with a .223-caliber high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines. According to the release by the police, officers patrolling the Oregon District as the bars were closing shortly after 1 a.m. heard the gunfire and saw a large crowd running away. They immediately advanced towards the gunfire and within approximately 20 seconds, engaged the suspect, who was actively firing and attempting to enter a crowded liquor establishment.
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Again, something strikes, which is that the threat was neutralized in approximately 30 seconds of the suspect firing his first shot!
So, while the accused perpetrator of the Dayton shooting, Connor Betts, 24, was fatally shot by authorities, the accused El Paso gunman, Patrick Crusius, 21, was arrested and taken into custody. In other words, both perpetrators were nabbed, one way or the other, and in seconds.
Yes, the incidents happened in America and they will not be the last. And yes, you are right, crime happens everywhere as long as human beings exist. But the difference is in the capacity and willingness to apprehend perpetrators to serve as deterrent to others waiting to commit such crimes simply because past offenders were not punished.
You guess right. I am talking about Nigeria, where many acts of terror perpetrated against innocent citizens and communities, especially by rampaging Fulani herdsmen, have remained unpunished. Till date, no one, for instance, has been called to answer for the massacre in Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and the rest of them, literarily.
Rather than apprehend suspected killers that those in authority had wanted us to believe are foreigners, and who the president once urged those mourning the outcome of their deadly acts of banditry to accommodate are, instead, treated with kid-gloves. So, why won’t they take laws into their hands, giving ultimatum to the rest of the citizens on how to live in Nigeria?
Or how does one explain that while some Nigerians were burying their dead, mowed down by these bandits and terrorists, the federal government that has not effected arrest of any of them, would contemplate the grabbing of other people’s ancestral land across the country for establishment of what it calls RUAGA settlement for herdsmen? Same herdsman that kill, maim and displaced communities, without first explaining to the people how it intends to disarm them of AK47 guns they wield!
That government had to suspend the RUGA plan following widespread outrage, doesn’t take away the fact that government appears more interested in the well being of the killer herdsmen than that of innocent Nigerians they daily slaughter.
Across all parts of the country, armed herdsmen have been on a killing spree and allegedly emboldened by the President Muhammadu Buhari led-administration’s laidback approach to their terror acts. Or why is he always quick to make excuses for them, and even asking communities including those being destroyed by the herders, to instead, accommodate them?
Against this background, the killers, it would seem, are now more secured and enjoying more freedom of movement than innocent citizens, who no longer feel safe traveling within the country by road for fear of being attacked, kidnapped and killed by these heavily armed herdsmen. And this is in addition to the menace of Boko Haram, mostly in the northeast.
Granted that acts of terror and other criminal activities are global phenomenal as President Buhari would gladly remind us, but how it is tackled by any administration is what defines the level of security or otherwise the rest of the populace is exposed to, since terrorism has no conscience and spares no one.
I tried imagining how sane a society like ours will be, even if relatively, if and when we handle our security crises with the swiftness, seriousness and commitment, devoid of political tendencies, as applied by authorities and people during the shootings that occurred in El Paso and Dayton, USA, the other weekend, among others. More so, when Nigerians, as a people, are hardly wired the way of the US shooters.
President Donald Trump may have been blamed for enabling such acts, following racist and hate tweets and words (which he, like the man in Aso Rock, claims not to see as such), but the system, despite his personal dispositions on some issues, still works because it is highly institutionalized.
That is what Nigeria desperately needs – a strong institution more than a strong president, that is if you are even seeing a strong president.
