S3 E:28 Extra Episode. Brown University Shooting and the failure of our culture.

We came back from our planned break to speak about the Brown University shooting, the weight of living near it, and the everyday systems that fail to protect people. Healthcare costs, campus safety, and community care weave into a candid, grounded conversation.

• premium spikes, broken enrollment, and access gaps
• moral injury of vulnerability in a crisis
• what the videos miss and what students carry
• policing delays, dismissive responses, and data manipulation
• harm reduction versus root causes of violence
• campus safety tradeoffs and obvious fixes
• misinformation, victim‑blaming, and media noise
• practical community care after trauma
• small rituals, animals, and grounding for healing

We will be taking a break and will resume at the end of January

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4

Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.


Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.


Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Holiday Plan Change
• 0:41 Health Insurance Premium Shock
• 6:58 Systemic Barriers And Access
• 7:59 Transition To Brown University Shooting
• 9:47 How We Learned About The Attack
• 12:19 Secondary Trauma And National Context
• 15:47 Classroom Scare And Moral Injury
• 22:02 Policing, Safety Numbers, And Trust
• 26:48 Processing Fear, Proximity, And Safety
• 33:30 Culture Of Violence And Power
• 40:16 Online Reactions And Victim-Blaming
• 47:04 Debriefing, Care Gaps, And Misinformation
• 54:05 Campus Safety Measures And Tradeoffs

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:14

This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the United States of PTSD. I do want to acknowledge that I did say that Eric and I would be taking a brief break for the holidays, and we were certainly planning on doing that. However, uh, for those of you that might have been paying attention, there was a uh mass shooting at Brown University College, which is in very close to where we where I live. Um, so I felt that I had to address it. And today I'm also joined by Amy. Amy was on the previous episode. You did the two-part story about how you were able to get out of a cult. So thank you for coming back. And the reason why Amy is back is because Amy and I both had an experience that is tied to what we're gonna be talking about. So that's why I'm doing an episode right now. And after this, we will be taking a break as we had planned on until uh next year. So, Amy, welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:27

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

Always a pleasure. And before um, Erica will also be joining. Erica's gonna be a little bit late. They're gonna come in, I'm sorry, uh, in a little bit. I do want to start off by just talking about, and Amy, I would like your your thoughts on this as well. The state of healthcare in our country is so bad that my premium, so because I'm self-employed, I have to get my my healthcare through the healthcare exchange. My premium went up almost 80%. So it's it is now half the cost of my mortgage. So I will put that out right there. And in Connecticut, where I am, um, this is actually the one thing I liked better about Rhode Island. I thought the insurance was better in Rhode Island. We were told to wait until the 15th because of Congress, you know, what they were going to do in terms of the healthcare subsidies. And I mean, we were told this by the people who work at Health Source in Connecticut, I mean uh health access. And so, of course, today's the 15th. And I was normally set to auto-enroll, like I normally do every year. And of course, I got disenrolled, and then I went to call today, and of course, their website's down. And I called and was on hold this morning for an hour and a half, only to have a very rude woman pick up the phone and say, sorry, our systems are down, call back later. And I was like, You've got to be kidding me. Uh, and then I call back later, and of course, I'm on hold for like another 50 minutes, and their website still doesn't work, and you can't get any answers. And of course, I'm talking to people who I know don't work here, so they don't know the ins and outs of the systems that are going on. And it's just an absolute shit show. So I still don't even know if I have healthcare as of right now for next year, which is wild. It's so out of control. I don't know how people, I don't know how half our country is going to afford it. I mean, I have to cut corners now to afford healthcare. And I am actually not eligible for the subsidies anymore, not even by that much. I just missed the cutoff by a very small amount, which is now going to cost me about$5,000 more a year in healthcare. So, you know, you we talk about how systems just keep a people oppressed. And this is just another great example of because I make X amount of money, I now have to pay more money, which actually puts me less than what I would have been making. It's it's just insane.

SPEAKER_06: 3:53

Absolutely. It's it's criminal, is what it is.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

It should be criminal. Has it has it impacted you at all in in Rhode Island?

SPEAKER_06: 4:01

I have not, I have not done my um enrollment yet. I have to adjust my income as well because I left a job. So I don't know what that's gonna look like in terms of I do get the um the earned income tax credit just because, you know, of my what I'm taking in my income. I don't know what I have no idea what that's gonna look like, and I've been procrastinating it because I'm so scared to even look like a deal with it, which is insane.

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

It's terrifying. I have to tell you, when I first got the letter from them that had my new like what my new rate was gonna be, I didn't open it for weeks because I didn't want to look at it because I knew it was not gonna be good news once they got rid of the subsidies, which kind of have you have to laugh. If something's affordable in the first place, why do we need subsidies?

SPEAKER_04: 4:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 4:46

I mean, it's just not affordable to begin with. But then, you know, opening it up and seeing, like, oh my God, I'm gonna be paying like almost twice what I was paying, you know, like actually more than that. It's just it's insane. It it's wild. I don't know. And of course, I don't know what your plan is, but mine covers pretty much nothing except for physicals, it barely covers any dental. And I I I added up how much money I spend on healthcare throughout the year versus how much I use. So if I were to pay for my physical out of pocket and then pay for my medications out of pocket, which without insurance are like 30 bucks. So I mean, it's not even, it doesn't even come close to matching what I pay as to what I'm getting back. And none of it applies to the deductible. It seems like no matter what you do, at least what I do, it's like, oh, that's out of network, oh, that's out of pocket, oh, that's this, oh, that's that. That doesn't actually apply to your deductible. It's infuriating.

SPEAKER_06: 5:44

It is. I mean, and that's what that's like their for-profit business. That's not actually about insuring anyone, it's about how much money we can make, and it's we're sick, like that it's never enough. And if people have to die for me to be richer, then so be it. I don't care. It's a sickness, it's wild.

SPEAKER_01: 6:06

It really is.

SPEAKER_06: 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

So thank you for uh indulging me in that. I just I had to vent that because that was all day. I spent literally all day in between work dealing with that. And I still have to call tomorrow now to try to get some sort of broker because they couldn't, they they couldn't just re-enroll me in the plan. No matter how many times I asked them to do it, they just kept saying I need to call a broker. So now I get to call a broker, but the deadline is today. And they're saying, well, the deadline was just for the application, so you should be all set now to pick a plan for the end of the year, but it's just such BS.

SPEAKER_06: 6:43

So annoying. They make it so difficult. And it's just, yeah, a valid valid vent, I think that is just incredibly frustrating. And I think everyone can relate to that, you know, being stuck on a phone for hours of your day.

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

I think another great point that comes out of this, or actually, I would just like to highlight something that comes out of this, is I consider myself pretty high functioning. And I know you're really high functioning, and I'll and all, and we are struggling to navigate the system, even with all of the resources and education that we have, for people to then realize for people who don't have the education, or people who don't have the resources or access, this is almost impossible for them to navigate, and it's on purpose. So when you when you see people, don't just jump to they're abusing the system or any of those narratives that people like to throw around. The system is so screwed up by design that it either makes us like not do it because we can't figure it out, or that we end up making a mistake and then somehow we're accountable for something. You know, and that's it's it's important for everybody to just realize that. So thank you for again, Amy. Thank you for letting me rant. Oh, Amy, I can't hear you.

SPEAKER_06: 7:56

I said, of course, anytime.

SPEAKER_01: 7:59

All right, so let's switch gears and we can start talking about a horrible tragedy that happened here at Brown University. Amy, how did you how did you find out what happened? Like how did you become aware of it?

SPEAKER_06: 8:13

Yeah, I got an email from my college campus police, just alerting students to stay away from the area, even though like my college is not brown, but to stay away from that area, let students know. And I really thought, like, oh, that's that's weird, but I didn't think it was the the tragedy that it it was. Like my mind did not go to this as a mass shooting.

SPEAKER_01: 8:39

Um that's how I found out so the email just said stay out of the area because there's an active shooting shooting. Active shooter. And then how did you find out about how serious it was?

SPEAKER_06: 8:53

Um, I I turned on the news right away. Um, and that's when we saw that it was at some point when I first started watching the news, we found out that there were two who had died. And that was really upsetting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:13

I found out I actually had um a client had actually messaged me about it uh because I don't watch, I have no the only TV I have are streaming things like Amazon Prime or um, you know, so I don't really watch TV. And uh I didn't get any notifications over an email. So I saw I saw the message and I thought, what? Like really? And then of course I looked it up and I saw what had happened and how horrific it was. Um hi Erica, welcome. Thank you. We're just we're we're talking about how we found out about what happened. So Amy had just shared that she found out from an email from the school. Um, I found out with a client who had sent me a message about what had happened. And it is just, I mean, we know what happens. It's it's horrific. I don't even have words for it. And then later to find out that two of the students survived other mass shootings. I like I don't even have words for that. I don't know, Erica, what are your because Erica, you're on the other side of of the the states. So I mean, I it did, I mean, I know it made national news, and I know you're aware of what happened. It's right in our backyard. So I'm wondering what it was like for you to hear for you to hear about it or how you found out.

SPEAKER_05: 10:27

I found out through the news reports. I am a person that is usually spending a certain amount of time like combing through news. I'm sure that we could probably talk about the mental health management of that. Um, but I I choose to still do it. Um and I I have very close friend of mine who was faculty uh Brown, who is now in Rhode Island, is now um on the West Coast, but was and so I messaged her right away to basically check in because I know that that's a community. Obviously, like it doesn't matter how long you've been away, if you've been faculty at a university for a long time, that's um going to also be deeply impacting um as far as the secondary trauma, right? In like in addition to the direct community that's there. Um, and I think as far as being someone who works with students in general and who like when the first like Columbine, I was in high school when that happened. So in some ways, I've been like what like you watch and you see this horrific process increase in frequency, and to think about you know that it's only seems to continue to get more frequent. Um, and that we are also seeing these types of incidents in other countries, and it it just really reflects like the spread of of violence is basically like a um like you could track it as a public, like we might as well we could call it like a like a type of virus, right? And the way that it's impacting communities and the ripple effects.

SPEAKER_01: 12:42

Um that's such a great comparison because it it is like a virus, certainly. And it it's getting worse. I mean, we've had more mass shootings this year than we've had calendar days, and it's you know, people accept it as the norm. And I don't know, I've I've I I think for me and Amy, I want to hear about you. I think I'm having a hard time, I think, being objective because it is so close and it it's so personal. And then Amy and I had an experience over the summer, which I mentioned it on one of the other episodes, but I'll just I'll highlight it again now. We were in a class setting during the summer, and we heard what sounded like gunshots. I think there was probably, I might be wrong on this, Amy. I think there was what like maybe seven or eight of them, and um maybe more. And as the person responsible for all the students in the classroom, first I heard it, and because it wasn't like rapid fire, right? So, like it was like one thing, and there was we thought there was construction happening on campus at the time because it there were construction equipment all over the place, and you know, hear a loud bang, and everybody just kind of stops, and then there was two more. And at some point somebody said that's gunfire. And realizing how at that moment, how I might get really emotional.

SPEAKER_04: 14:07

Wow, that just kind of came out of nowhere, sorry. Um like I don't have like I didn't have the keys to lock the door. The building door.

SPEAKER_05: 14:40

This is like a slightly different situation, but we can see this in parallels when you are in a position of responsibility of care for a team. You know, it can be a doctor running a team, um, a teacher in with you know a person with responsibility of a group of people's safety. And when you're confronted with a situation with immediacy, and you realize that you do not have the tools to that you need something simple like a key, something simple like a method or a phone number or a piece of equipment. I think of the like it's a form of moral injury, but I think that that's not an appropriate enough classification. Like I think that we need to categorize the distinction of this types of moral injury and trauma because when you're in a position of responsibility and there's something that you know that if you had this one thing that you could create more safety or potentially save more lives, that is, uh especially when you're involved in a field of care.

SPEAKER_01: 16:18

And it's it's a situation that none of us should ever have to be in to begin with, right? So it's not, and there's no training that's involved with it. And even if there was a training that's involved with it, it's not something that is that is ever going to be the same, right? So like you can't one is never going to replicate the other. So just this incredible moment of knowing like what the you know, like what the fuck do I do right now? And how do I keep these people safe? And I think, and Amy, I do I I certainly want, I want to I want to hear what you have to say too. Um, I know the response I thought was not super great. Um, it took a while for the police to get there. I think it was 15 minutes. It was around the 4th of July, but I think one of the important things to highlight is that it was during the day. So most people don't light off fireworks during the day, number one. Number two, Amy and I both agree that the the the the um the sound changed, right? Like we heard it differently, like in terms of it moving. And last I checked, I mean, I don't light off fireworks, but I mean, most people don't run down the street throwing fireworks. So I mean, I don't it it just didn't make any sense. And when the police got there, their response was, yeah, you did the right thing, but it was probably fireworks and nothing because we looked around, we didn't see anything, so therefore it's fireworks. And it felt incredibly, I don't know, like dismissive. And I have to say, I lived in Providence for 12 years. Part of the reason I moved out of Providence was because of shit like this. My very first experience with Providence, I'm gonna tell you what happened. I moved into my house. This is just the what it was like living there, right? So I moved into my house. My house was on the corner of a four-way intersection. So there were four stop signs. And I was folding laundry, I hear a bang, I look out my window, and there's a truck sitting on top of the stop sign. The truck, I now I'm watching it. The truck backs up, picks up the stop sign, puts it in its car, and drives off. So I have the I have the plate number, I call the police, the police come out, I tell them exactly what happened, and they said, but you didn't see them hit the sign, right? And I said, I heard like literally, I said, I heard a loud bang within seconds. Like my window was right there. Like I literally heard the bank, looked out the window, saw them on top of the sob sign, which I think is a fair hypothesis to say they hit it. I saw them back up off of it, and then they stole it. They stole city property. So I explained that to the cops and they said, What do you want us to do about it? And then they asked for my ID as a resident. And I was like, What does that have to do with anything? They did absolutely nothing about it, and that is what it was like living in Providence. I mean, there was during the summer we would play this game, fireworks or gunshots, because we could never tell what it was. And I have to tell you, I had a meeting with our town councilwoman and the chief of police and some other residents in the in the community who were really angry about the amount of violence that was happening in the neighborhood. And where I lived was very close to the colleges. And the way it was explained to us was that if the bullet doesn't hit something, like a person, it's not considered a shooting. So if it you know hits a wall, or if they don't find the bullets, it's not really considered a shooting. So they don't report it as a shooting. So they play with these numbers to make the city look much safer than it is, but the city is not safe and it hasn't been safe in a really long time. So I'm sorry, Amy, jump in, please. I feel like I'm ranting now. And I just I want to hear what it was like for you and your experience. Experience and how this has affected you.

SPEAKER_06: 20:04

I think to go back to kind of your initial where you got emotional, it was just this sense of complete vulnerability because we did not have a plan. That's not something that's ever been discussed in any classes that I've been in on that campus. Um not even in like the orientation, like here's what you do if this happens. There was that, and then the lack of locks on the door and realizing, you know, where we ended up going and where we all ended up also really was not safe either, because of the layout of that room. And so I remember being in there and panicking for like a real thought did cross my mind that this is really happening and I might myself get shot and I'm I'm going to witness these people also get shot. And that thought definitely came into my head for a solid minute. But what pacified that was this idea that these things don't happen here. And so it was then kind of replaced with this confusion. Um if that had happened after what just took place at Brown, my immediate feeling would just be terror, like absolute sheer terror. And I think with what just happened at Brown, I think that's that ripple effect of that. And that's that virus, is that everyone is just kind of in this state of just being terrorized. So that's what and can I just say I live in Providence. I live less than 10 minutes from where this happened. But I've I love Providence. I actually feel very safe here. I walk around my, I'm on Smith Hill. It's not the safest, you know, quote unquote neighborhood. But I feel comfortable walking at night, you know, around my block. I don't feel like I'm in danger, right? So to me, it did feel very much like a per like a violation of some sort. Like you are messing with my sense of safety at this place that I call home. That is probably the first place I've been able to call home my whole life.

SPEAKER_01: 22:24

I'm glad that you have a different experience. I know my neighbor had I actually I can tell you the reason the the day I made the decision, I'm out of here. My neighbor across the street, who had lived there his lifetime, he was a retired police officer, had passed away, and there was a for sale sign on his property. There had already been a stabbing and a fatality on my street the year before. And I was on vacation. Somebody had called me and said, Did you see the news? There were 22 gunshots fired on your street. It was at that moment that I said, I'm out of here. Like I am not tolerating this anymore. So I called the number on the real estate sign across the street and you know, I left. Ironically, right after I moved into my house in Connecticut, my neighbor called me and said, Are you okay? I heard gunshots. And I was like, Really? But when up here was probably because they were shooting a deer or something. But yeah, it just I didn't have that experience living there. I mean, I I think I I felt safe like walking down the street to go to the store, you know, that, and I felt safe in terms of that stuff, but just the the competence of the police I thought was questionable, like very questionable.

SPEAKER_05: 23:33

Yeah, I think when we like there are so many conversations that could be had about community safety, policing, like gun violence, regulation. And I think the I also found like difficult in this space is how how many things are happening at once. So as people are processing this, then we have you know international stories about what happened in Bondi in Australia. Um that so for me as someone who has also lived internationally, it's it's been interesting to feel as if this feature of of mass shootings and gun violence is something that the US has been exporting, not only with just literally the exportation of guns and weapons and war manufacturing, but also with that experience like of what happens, you know, in in communities that experience mass shooting.

SPEAKER_01: 24:50

I agree with your maybe I I'm the outlier here, but you know, people are like, oh, we have a gun problem, we have a mental health problem, we have a culture problem. That's what I think it is, because there's places where this doesn't happen. And I I love how you just said we're exporting it because I think we are. And the fact that we are now calling we have the Department of War, we're not even hiding it anymore. Like this is just a war machine.

SPEAKER_05: 25:16

Yeah, I um I used to live near the uh Winchester mansion.

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

Oh, I've always wanted to go to that.

SPEAKER_05: 25:25

Did you go in? I never actually went in it. Oh never actually went in it. I just would drive by it and look at it and think about stories. I I think there was part of me because there's a certain amount of like madness associated with it, right? And I'm like, I don't like yes, you know, like weapons and rifle manufacturing billionaire magnate builds a a house out of their madness, right? Like I I like that's that's my personal um take and reflection on it. And and this, you know, I my so since my my mom, so my mom is Taiwanese, and there's something that she used to say always uh when I was growing up, and she says in China we made gunpowder and we decided to make fireworks and parties and beautiful things, and then the British got their hands on it and they made guns. So in some ways, one could argue that it also like it's part of still like the United States and the like the history of guns is basically the history of colonization. Is it a history of non violence?

SPEAKER_01: 26:51

Erica, you I wanted to ask you this last time I saw you, and I forgot to ask you this. What do you why do we because if anybody would know the answer to this, you would know the answer to this? Why do we use the term colonization when it's terrorism?

SPEAKER_05: 27:09

Um I think that terrorism doesn't necessarily uh include land theft in the same way that colonial like a racial, like I think that terrorism is a facet of colonialization, but there's like more um comp like there there's added complexity, right? Um, but we could, I mean, and I would say that I might not I I don't have answers, but I can pontificate and philosophize on it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:44

See, I knew you would.

SPEAKER_05: 27:45

That's why um so you know, when we I think that um I probably have a couple of friends as far as anthropologists that would be probably interesting to have this this conversation with as far as the the nature of of violence and also the pairing of madness with that violence. And I've I think that when you think about human beings as like creatures, right? Of um, and hang on. Uh when when you think about this this concept of like humans are animals, right? What does this additional utilizing additional tools of violence happen? Because like, for example, like I have animals that have PTSD and fear aggression based off of experiences that they had with aggression. And so cycles of violence do exist within our domesticated species. I don't have I don't have enough familiarity to understand what that is in our wildlife species.

SPEAKER_01: 29:02

We can I we can definitely, you know what, we can save that for a different episode because I I I was thinking more, it just seems like we are um trying to make it sound nicer than it is by using words like colonizing. And I think I think we do that with lots of things where we make it sound nice when it really is something horrible.

SPEAKER_05: 29:22

Well, colonization has a different hits differently depending on your background.

SPEAKER_01: 29:26

Well, that's that's very true too. All right, so let's let's let's hold off on that for another episode. Um Amy, I wanted to ask you if you have seen I mean if you've been paying attention to the stories on like any of the like web um like news medias or social media. The responses that I'm seeing are are somewhat nauseating. There was one, I and Erica, I don't know if you've seen any of it, but there's a video of the kids in the library and the police coming in and people are posting things like why are they on their phones if they're so scared? And I'm like, Really? That's what you that's what you're gonna post about. And then there was somebody else who interviewed one of the survivors, and he was saying exactly what you said about things like this don't happen here. I didn't expect that at an Ivy League college that this would happen. And they were the comments were like raking him about like, oh, what, like Brown isn't like too good for that? Like, what's that supposed to mean? You're showing your privilege. And it's like, oh my God, they're just attacking the victims of this horrible tragedy. And even I wrote something about how if faculty just had keys, there would at least be one step to safety. And somebody literally responded to me and said, You're a retard. Um, even a kindergartner knows how to lock a door without a key. And I'm like, what the fuck? Seriously, that's that's the comment that was made to me. I just, I don't know. Have you seen any of that, Amy?

SPEAKER_06: 30:46

What are your I am not on social media and I'm very grateful for that. I got off in January, and um, my mental health is a lot better because of this. So I don't see those kinds of comments, but I'm not surprised. Um, it really is indicative of the what you were talking about, about like our culture that that's viewed as okay and acceptable to to even like say those things. Um yeah, that's horrifying. I was I thought you were going to talk about the video of of the the the kids in the library when the police came in, in that like how traumatizing that must have been. Like that's where my brain went. And so to think that someone could look at that and go, think anything other than that is it's just wild. It's just so bizarre.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

There's such a lack of empathy and just a lack of humanity going on. I mean, I I remember when the police got there. I mean, just to give you, Eric, a little bit of like what the building looks like. So we it's a small building and we're downstairs in the basement, and there's these set of stairs that they're kind of long and they they curve around. And um, you know, just hearing the police come in and watching them all come down the stairs, I mean, it was really traumatic. And for me, and there was a there was like maybe two students that were out there, I think, at the same time. And it's just not something you expect to see like ever in that type of scenario. And then watching the video that you talked about, Amy, where they're all, you know, the cops are yelling, hands up, hands up, and all the, you know, the students are like throwing their hands up in the air. And I get why they're doing it, obviously, because they have to make sure that the shooter isn't in the building. But it's just, you know, it makes me think of how we throw the word trauma-informed care around and then it's not really ever practiced. Now, obviously, I know that in a setting like that, you can't use trauma-informed care, but I think the parallel of like how sometimes these interventions are so traumatizing for the people that are experiencing it, just as traumatizing as the event itself, you know, and I just those poor students, like I really feel for them.

SPEAKER_05: 32:55

And well, there's something that I can't like we cannot we cannot control like what what happens at that point where the police have to behave or be prepared in entering a space that a um that someone that is armed and has those intentions is within the space keeping people hostage, right? So but there's the immediate response after, right? And and just to point out something straightforward, like often people are not using their brains, the kids who are on their phones to be in communication with other people, they left during that time of fear, right? Like in addition to like um trying to look for other information, right? So it's incredible in general how people will speak confidently with ignorance. Um and these components as also as far as those students and after that moment, the community care that's around it. And and obviously we do not live in a care-based society, right? If we did live in a care-based society, then there would be more resources for education, there would be more resources for health care, there would be more resources for teachers and schools and programs that actually met like the community-based connected, like human connection needs in order to ensure that someone doesn't go down so far a path of you know, isolation and and where where something like this becomes like put forward in someone's logic system. I you know, and especially when we look at how isolating some of these conditions are and how they continue to be so, as far as for both students and like communities in general, that there's a breaking of relationship. But I do think that there are times afterwards where we can utilize those tools of care to deepen relationship. And and Matthew and Amy, you might have more knowledge on the research on this, but immediately after a traumatic event, if there is an appropriate naming and processing of it, that we can reduce the likelihood of the long-term like damage that it can have. Um that's true.

SPEAKER_01: 35:44

If there's a if there's an incident debriefing right afterwards, like absolutely. Um, I don't know that that would happen in this capacity because of how many people were involved. I mean, I know we have we have also another, we have a healthcare crisis in Rhode Island in terms of shortage of staff and agencies. And where they went, the hospital that the people, the victims went to was already at max capacity when the victims got there. And that's because we just keep it's profit over people. I mean, right? So, like the the hospitals would much rather have a higher margin for the CEOs at the end of the day than hire more people. And where we're also looking at two other hospitals closing down in Rhode Island potentially, and another large group of primary care providers closing down. So that's that's in addition to the problems that we're having. But the other thing that's hurting the community is that first we had there was the inconsistent messages, right? So first we had that there was somebody in custody, and then we had the idiot-in-chief tweet about uh you know how they had they had caught the person, and of course they didn't. And then he, of course, had to do a correction on that. Then we have this person of interest, and I'm fairly certain they have now ruined his life because they leaked his name and all the information to the police, and it was all over the place. And of course, people are profiling him and you know, being uh the the the uh armchair cops, and then it was like, oops, wrong person. So now they have to let him go, but I I'm certain that they've ruined that kid's life, and so now there's nobody, right? So we don't know what happened to that person, which is very distressing, I think, to the to the community. And Amy, I'm wondering how how all of this impacts you going back to like a classroom setting.

SPEAKER_06: 37:45

I am really glad that we're on winter break. I felt really felt for the students that had to go back today and finish their finals. Um I know some schools opted to do their finals um online, like they were offering that instead. Um some schools weren't, and I just felt that was so it just doesn't um all I was thinking, I was thinking about the the two students who have already gone through this and now they go through this a second time. I was thinking about the younger students who were in our class, Matt, when that happened and how they reacted so robotic, like they knew exactly what to do. They just were closing the blinds, turning off the lights, you know, barricading doors. And I'm like, oh my God, like they that's just been their life. And to like I just to not recognize the trauma that like all of all of Americans' children are experiencing because they are being subjected to just terror day after day after day. And so to not recognize that, hey, maybe this isn't the best time to be judging someone's academic like abilities, you know, after what just happened. And especially considering that they just said that morning, uh this morning that they didn't actually catch catch the guy. So yeah, um, I don't know if I answered your question. I went on a little bit of a rant.

SPEAKER_01: 39:12

Oh, I think you know, you did. So you well, you're saying that you're glad that classes aren't happening right now.

SPEAKER_06: 39:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:20

How do you think it'll impact you going back in January? Or I mean, I know that's kind of like I I know you can't answer that.

unknown: 39:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 39:30

I think that I think that I really am hoping for um actions, like changes to ensure that students feel more safe on campus. Um, I think there are a lot of things that we could do to enhance the safety. Um so unless those changes are made, I'm not going to feel very good about going back.

SPEAKER_01: 39:56

Um I don't know, I mean, I don't. Have a ton of experiences on. I've probably been on maybe like 10 different campuses throughout my lifetime, if I'm including like my own academic career and then just going to colleges for various different things. And I don't think I've ever been out to any out West Erica. So I'd be curious if they're the same as this, but none of them have none of the ones I've been on have any way of preventing people from entering buildings. They're all pretty much like open campuses all the time, except the dorms. I think even when I was in college living on campus in the 90s, we had codes to get in the building and everything. So I mean the dorms I think have been locked, unlocked down for a while, but in terms of classrooms, dining hall, admin buildings, like fine, none of that stuff is closed. Anybody can go into those buildings.

SPEAKER_05: 40:51

I mean, I've seen it change depending on campuses. There's somewhere certain parts of the campus will be like ID, like badge stations, or like little um electronic keys. Um, but usually some of the buildings that are meant to be accessible to all of the students, there will be periods of time where the doors are open. And of course, you know, like someone can follow in behind someone else, right?

SPEAKER_01: 41:20

So I'm gonna, Erica, I'm gonna go in on a limb here. Yeah, and and and tell me if this is correct. I would guess that the buildings that you're saying, like some of them are locked down, it's because there's expensive stuff in the building.

SPEAKER_05: 41:32

Probably, yeah. When I think especially like parts of the medical school or parts of the science like uh schools, right? Like in some of those where there's lab laboratory equipment, that kind of thing. Um, there are uh things where the students have that movement and you might have certain access to certain buildings.

SPEAKER_01: 41:53

Um the reason why I'm saying that is it's it's interesting that we will protect our assets if they're expensive, but we won't protect the human beings that are keeping the place open.

SPEAKER_05: 42:05

Yeah. That's just I um and also like all of these systems are imperfect, right? Someone who wants to get through a glass door is gonna be able to get through a glass door. So really, when we have these conversations about whether or not some of these measures are actually effective, right? When people talk about like, okay, community safety, are we going to put it into more like you know, like arming teachers, for example, versus social programs that start to break down some of the reasons why we end up with this type of breakdown, right? As far as within like a society, like the the individual's cohesion with society and a descent into a more violent choice, right? I have there there's many people who have studied this. Um that you know, I haven't had a chance to deep dive into some of this literature. But these like that's you know, we we do a lot of debating and not necessarily a lot of doing, right? And that's something that I'm preaching.

SPEAKER_01: 43:25

That's that's the truth, right? Lots of strong words, lots of thoughts and prayers, lots of that, but no action. And of course, I know of course I know that no system is is perfect, and that obviously there are things that are gonna fall through the cracks, but I think there's also kind of egregious errors where it's like you know it's a problem, there's a glaring issue. Why can't we fix it? Oh, we don't have the money to fix it. Well, you're gonna quickly come up with the money when there's a situation like what happened at Brown University. I guarantee that. Because one of the issues I think, Amy, they're talking about the fact that they don't the cameras didn't pick up a lot, right? So they're saying, like, why didn't Brown have better cameras, right? Again, I'm not blaming the school for it because I mean it's the shooter, that's it's the shooter's fault, obviously. But it's just I I think we know that there are glaring cracks, and we're just like looking at them, we're not fixing them. And this is unrelated to a school shooting, but I remember when I was in when I was going to college in undergrad, that we were we had a classroom in the basement of a building. There was no way out of that classroom except for the one door. So there's no windows, there's like nothing else, right? There's just that door. And again, this isn't related to a school shooting, but what happened was we had a late class. It was, I think the class got out at nine o'clock or something, and we had a snowstorm, and they had shut down the school and they had sent everybody home, but they forgot we were down there. So we didn't know it was snowing because we didn't have windows, right? So, like, and this was before like cell phones. Well, I mean, I think we had cell phones, but it wasn't like we didn't have weather apps and all that stuff, right? So, like I remember we're down there just kind of having class, and then all of a sudden class gets out. It was a three-hour class, and we go outside and it was like, holy shit, it was like white out blizzard. And I, when I tell you, I lived 15 minutes from campus, it took me two hours to get home because of like how slow I had to drive. It was horrible. Now, I think about that, of course. That's that's funny, it's an innocent mistake, it was like not a big deal, but that goes to show how if that were a different scenario, that would have been really scary.

SPEAKER_05: 45:32

Yeah, I think um something that came up, you know, Amy mentioned it, you had mentioned it. Um, I alluded to it at this concept of preparation, right? And also a certain amount of acceptance, like preparation, you can't always be prepared for for what could happen. But one thing that you can do is you can try and reflect on some components. Um, because planning or preparation for some people can be very um like uh grounding. And I think when we think about the the implications of this, right? So we have um anxiety for communities that are experiencing secondary trauma. We have how do we navigate the trauma of people who were directly impacted or people that maybe didn't witness an aspect of the violence, but experienced things with like the police, you know, coming into a certain space and clearing a certain space, or having to be the students having to be locked down for nine hours, right? Um, those kinds of things about how how do we engage in harm reduction, you know, in a space where we are have limits to our control as individuals, as communities. Um, and I just think so much about you know, when you think about like the Black Panthers, for example, the response to the type of violence that they were organizing against, right? A lot of that was random violence. A lot of that was um things that were entering into their communities as well. And how do we start to make decisions? Because we already know that um people in positions of power and authority that could create regulations that impact guns, that impact funding towards social programs, that impact access to things that might stop on one end. Like that's not gonna happen, to be honest. Like we've been sitting here for like, you know, over 20 years waiting for something meaningful to happen. And really, honestly, it comes back to individuals, community members, and grassroots efforts on this, in my opinion, right? And and to also to do the community care afterwards.

SPEAKER_01: 48:19

Eric, I agree with everything you said. Um, I was thinking when you would, and I'm gonna probably butcher this story, but what's there's like something about I'm gonna make this up, but like there's a whole bunch of kittens coming down the stream, so everybody's thinking about different ways to save the kittens. And so everybody's like saving the kittens, and then nobody's trying to figure out why they're getting in the water in the first place. And that, I mean, I am for harm reduction, don't get me wrong, especially working at in addictions, I'm all about harm reduction. And I I think we are past that. I think we're at the point where it has to be, okay, why is this happening? And I agree with you. I mean, it's been 20 years of like, you know, both political parties pointing the finger at the other person and saying, like, oh, it's your fault, it's your fault. And you know, I I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I'm at the point where if somebody's in office right now, they need to be voted out, like across the board, because they've all failed. And we need to make sure that the people that we are electing are one, not working for another country, and two, like, really are representing the people. And I don't think we have anybody doing that right now. And that's that's obviously you, myself, and Amy are not going to fix that as much as we would like to. Um, you know, but we I think we have to just I don't know, get louder, like get like get these people out.

SPEAKER_05: 49:40

Yeah, I think um there's no one thing, right? So like I've been doing organizing work a long time and a lot of different issues. And one thing that it's it's never one thing, right? And so in this case, we have legislative push, accountability pushes both within different, you know, um levels of community, right? From and so like we do have individual power, right? Like an individual individual household, in an individual community, right? Like what type of conversations and check-ins are we having with each other? And sometimes, you know, in some of these stories, right, you see that there is a young person who at some point became isolated. And at some point, people in their lives were making assumptions about whether or not they were okay. And I by no means like so. This is not like excusing, it's talking about explaining, like an understanding of what is where does that happen? It happens somewhere, and this is where at times we can have more actionable ways of responding, of checking in with people, and rather than being so like in these very separate separable units, right? Because young people need a village always, right? And there's been a successive dismantling of that village or other relationships due to many different things, right? And and if we have that ability to actually check in to be like, all right, not only like if we're identifying children that are isolated or experiencing bullying, like we have plenty of stories where where kids are being bullied and there's no intervention.

SPEAKER_01: 51:52

What are you talking about? We have the zero tolerance for bullying policy.

SPEAKER_00: 51:56

You know, I'm being sarcastic, right?

SPEAKER_05: 51:58

Right, yeah, just like so usually something that gets to this drastic, right? This is not an acute problem. This is a chronic thing. This is a chronic issue that happened that resulted in this person going from, you know, a childhood to someone who was going to conduct a mass shooting, right?

SPEAKER_01: 52:20

You know what's interesting when you said about checking in with people and feeling and and being isolated. I went to, we all know I love my Dunkin' Donuts, and I went to Dunkin' Donuts um Friday. Was it Friday or Saturday? No, it was when was the what day was the shooting on? It was Saturday, right? So it had to be Monday. Um, and one of the women in there was like, Oh my god, I'm so glad you're okay. She's like, I knew you taught at a college, but I didn't know where you taught. I was like so worried about you. And that was meaningful to me because that doesn't happen often. Usually I'm the one calling people to see if they're okay. So that that meant a lot to me. Um, so thank you for bringing that up. And just for the sake of time, because we we we do need to wrap up. Amy, I'm wondering if you have any final thoughts you want to share about just the process, your experience, like anything.

SPEAKER_06: 53:09

I actually really love that story about the person in Duncan Donuts like being concerned for you because it demonstrates that, you know, that the importance of that connectivity to other people and and that community. So it just kind of highlights highlights that um the importance of that. Um Yeah, I don't know what the answer is either. I do I do believe we need to start being more proactive, which is you know really what Erica was expressing is how do we stop this from even happening versus how do we deal with it after the fact. And I think community is going to be a big piece of that we really have lost.

SPEAKER_04: 53:55

Our connection to humanity.

SPEAKER_01: 53:58

It's just Erica, we need to clone you so that we can have because you you can only do so much, but if we clone you Lao Tzu, read some Lao Tzu, everyone, and Ruby.

SPEAKER_05: 54:27

So all right and gaze into a puppy's eyes.

SPEAKER_01: 54:32

Oh it's kiddies for me.

SPEAKER_05: 54:36

And that's I mean, like, like well, so I think that this is important. This is important, like how many people feel this way. Like gazing into the eyes of an animal that can connect with you on a very deep level is a really wonderful way to recognize and realize that we're not alone on this planet, right? And even if you are not having are not able to connect with people, sometimes being able to connect with animals is that stuff. So if you're like feeling away about what's happening in the world, take a moment to connect with a living creature.

SPEAKER_01: 55:26

Animals are the best.

SPEAKER_06: 55:28

Animals are what taught me to like how to heal from trauma. I worked with um, I worked in pet care for a long time and I specialized in reactive dogs. Um, so I worked with, I got to just that like gaining their trust, knowing their history, um, just that fear and being able to like overcome that. Oh my gosh. They all have like I just carry them with me so much. I always loved the difficult ones that like you had to earn their trust. Um, but yeah, it taught me so much.

SPEAKER_01: 56:02

When I so for those of you, because we don't have the visual, so I'm holding one of my cats right now. So beautiful. When I tell you that when I say it's bedtime, she comes up to the bed, gets under literally the cover, puts her head on the pillow right next to me, and goes to sleep.

SPEAKER_06: 56:20

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05: 56:22

That is too precious. I'm glad that we're ending on this note of like the beautiful things. Because even though you know, this isn't like new to humanity, like humanity has there's like horrors throughout the beginning of written history, but there are beautiful things, and and I think that when we're trying to make sense of those, if you find yourself spiraling a little bit, try and ground in that and hopefully if we all collectively work to make this shift, we can change this trend and you know donate to organizations supporting people moving through this and communities affected by this, if you can, and don't forget the ones who have already been impacted. You don't forget about them.

SPEAKER_01: 57:26

And to add to Erica, that's fantastic. To add to that, also if you have a friend that's a teacher, call them up, check on them, thank them for the work that they do. If you have a child that's a student, or if you have a friend that's a student, or uh anybody, call them up and ask them how they're doing. Ask them if they're okay, ask them if they need anything. This is the time to reach out. And and as both of you have said, you know, multiple times, community, we need to get back to this and we need to just all step up. And then Erica, I said at the beginning that we are on a break, so we will resume at the end of January, but that we came on today because of the circumstances of what happened. So um, thank you both, Amy. I always appreciate your time. You're so amazing. And Erica, thank you. You're also always amazing. I love you both. So thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_05: 58:16

Take care everyone.

SPEAKER_00: 58:40

This is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank you again.