Loyal Scaiaholics know I’ve struggled with feeling ways about things. I held off on writing a blog because there’s nothing funny about what happened in El Paso or Dayton.
Now, the president has come and gone, and we’re all hollerin’ about politics again, although the mayors of Fort Worth and McKinney have both said we can holler later; now’s the time to think about what happened.
El Paso had 22 murders last weekend. The city had a total of 23 murders last year, and from 2009 to 2018, El Paso averaged a total of 16 murders a year.
During the worst of the drug-related violence, I thought it’d be a good idea to head to Juarez for some reason. An associate and I were determined to get to the bottom of this thing.
While I was there, the folks in El Paso were quite vocal that even though Juarez had become more dangerous than Iraq, El Paso was actually one of the safest cities in the United States. It was even blessed by the pope!
I was spending some quality time with associates at the casino Saturday. A blackjack dealer was wearing a Pete Rose jersey. I was home.
My news director called. He asked if I’d heard what happened in El Paso. We’d seen a few tweets about it, but we didn’t know the extent of what happened.
We all started talking about our connections to West Texas.
El Paso was the first spot in Texas I passed through ten years ago when I moved here from Oregon. I’ve been back to visit several times. In fact, I stayed at a hotel near that Wal-Mart when the pope was in town.
I had no idea I’d wake up Sunday morning, look at my phone and see friends from Dayton marking themselves, “Safe,” from a shooting there. I googled and saw what was happening back home.
These were two places I knew; I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve complained about restaurant prices or loud music in the Oregon District.
When we found out the El Paso shooter was from Collin County, I was dispatched to his grandparents’ home in Allen, where he’d been staying.
A police car was parked in front. The officer told me I was welcome to stay parked on the street or on the sidewalk, but the grandparents were dealing with law enforcement themselves and had no idea what he’d been planning.
The #ElPasoShooting gunman had been living with his grandparents in Allen. He graduated from Plano Sr HS in 2017, went to Collin College until spring of this year. A family friend read a statement from the grandparents, saying they’re “devastated” and working w law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/bP0ymRhZch
— Alan Scaia (@scaia) August 5, 2019
Other people who live in that neighborhood were friendly. My standard line has become, “I don’t like this anymore than you do, but listen to me for a second: Can I ask what it’s like to have something like this so close to home?”
They were every bit as surprised as me to have a shooting this close.
One of them asked if I have kids.
“None that I’m aware of,” I said.
“If you ever have kids, these all hit close to home,” he said. “We’re getting ready for school to start, and now they have lockdown drills just like we had tornado drills.”
Then I’d talk about growing up in Dayton. This isn’t the Dayton where I grew up. Dayton is a place where we head to Skyline Chili or Marion’s Pizza to argue about whether Jose Rijo or Barry Larkin led the Reds to the 1990 World Series [Obviously, it was Chris Sabo]. My blackjack dealer had just agreed to his lifetime ban and was let go as manager the season before.
It’s a city where we all know each other, and even if I only see my friends from high school once a year at Christmas, we don’t have to catch up. We just pick up where we left off.
But Dayton never gets respect. And we are aware of that.
