Apparently harmless mistakes are paid dearly in the United States, even with life.
In six days, three almost identical stories have been repeated, after young people made mistakes in things as common, ordinary and unavoidable as getting confused when ringing a doorbell, on the way to driving or driving a car in a parking lot. All cases also have the same echo: the arms epidemic and the speed of pulling the trigger towards a stranger for the sake of supposed self-defense.
Two teenage cheerleaders were shot early Tuesday, one remains in critical condition after being evacuated to the hospital by helicopter, because one of the cheerleaders confused her vehicle in the parking lot of a supermarket in Elgin (Texas), about 40 miles from Austin. The alleged perpetrator of the shots, who was inside his car, is called Pedro Tello Rodríguez jr., 25 years old, and was arrested for a felony altercation with multiple shots.
“The truth is that we live in a nation in which more and more people shoot first and ask questions later. I think people are outraged and disgusted by this,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that promotes control measures on the sale and possession of guns, told NBC. “Parents wonder, will my child be next?” he posed.
There are no two without three that is said, or the domino effect. This trio of chained events, especially meaningless due to the circumstances and the youth of its victims, has attracted national attention and aroused pain and confusion.
Ralph Yarl, 16, was injured in the head when he missed the door in Kansas City while going to pick up his twin brothers. The owner received him with bullets. Just two days later, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was fatally struck when she and some friends took a wrong turn in a rural area of upstate New York and turned into a driveway, whose owner responded with his rifle.
The third chapter was reported by Heather Roth, one of the cheerleaders and victim in the parking lot of the H-E-B supermarket in Texas, who luckily the bullet only grazed and was able to go home after an emergency treatment in the same place of the incident.
As Roth explained, in a vigil streamed the same Tuesday night, she got the wrong car and, opening the door, saw that there was a man in the front passenger seat. She quickly turned around and walked away.
Once she found and got into the correct car, her friend's, she saw Rodríguez approaching and rolled down the window to apologize for what had happened. "But he pulled out a gun and started shooting," she recalled through tears. There were at least five detonations.
Her friend, 18-year-old Payton Washington, opened the door "and started throwing up blood." Two other cheerleaders from the Woodlands Elite program were in that vehicle but escaped unscathed.
The relatives of Washington reported this Wednesday that, despite the seriousness of the perforation of the spleen, the young woman had improved and had already been disconnected from the respirator, recognized people and spoke. She was described as a strong young woman who has been able to carry out an intense sporting activity despite the fact that she was born with only one lung.
Washington and Roth are residents of the Austin area and share a car to go to a gym in Oak Ridge Rock, in the Houston metropolitan area, more than 300 miles from their home, to participate three times a week in the aforementioned training program. cheerleaders. The supermarket parking lot is where all of them are, where some leave their vehicles or are picked up to make the journey. Meeting and farewell point.
Roth, who is already in college while the other three are in high school, confessed that she initially panicked at the thought that a stranger had gotten into her friend's car, before realizing she was the one. that he had been wrong. Investigators said Rodríguez opened fire "intentionally and recklessly."
Security video picked up as the gunman was leaving the parking lot. Elgin police sources stressed that he was known "from previous encounters with law enforcement," without specifying. They were able to track him down because the images captured his car's license plate. After a while he was in custody, with a bail of 500,000 dollars to be able to go free.
In a time of frequent mass shootings, Americans have more than convincing evidence that there is no safe haven and that tragedies lurk almost everywhere, in schools, churches, stores of all kinds, shopping areas, movie theaters, birthday parties. , funerals. But these three events in a period of less than a week have deepened those feelings that no place is truly safe.
Payton Washington's acquaintances launched a GoFundMe page to raise money to defray the cost of his hospital care. By Wednesday afternoon some $90,000 had been raised.
And since there is no way to do anything against the plague of weapons, the participants in the vigil on Tuesday night prayed for her and her healing. In the country of guns, it's better not to make mistakes, however trivial they may be. In any case, the price is from another world.
