Sunday's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida has sent shockwaves throughout the nation, with some Starkville residents reflecting in the wake of this recent tragedy.
"This is tragic and scary," said Wilson Whitten, a Mississippi State University graduate, planning on moving to California later this summer. "I know Orlando is a big city, but it's still not like a huge hub like New York City, Chicago or Los Angeles. With it being sort of closer it's unsettling. It's tragic to hear the destruction that one person can do in the small amount of time."
Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida opened fire in the club around 2 a.m. using an assault rifle he purchased legally. As of press time yesterday, the death count was at 50 (including Mateen), with 43 injured, according to The New York Times.
Mateen was interviewed by the FBI in 2013 after making threats to a coworker at his job as a security guard for G4S, a national security firm. After 10 months, the FBI closed the investigation, with no charges against Mateen.
"We don't know what sort of knowledge that the government had on him," said Allison Barnhill, Starkville resident. "The terrible thing about terrorism is that anyone could wake up today and do commit a crazy act of violence. In that sense, there is nothing that can be prevented. You can't get inside someone head and know what their thoughts are."
Bailey McDaniel is a junior student at MSU from Terry and is president of the LGBTQ+ Union, an advocacy organization.
"It's a tense time doing any kind of activist work. Seeing mass casualties in the community I'm fighting for is really tough."
She went on to note that doing things like waving a pride flag on the drill field is important because it raises visibility, but what will help the most is getting people in power to sit down and listen. She was disappointed to see many people in power offering just "thoughts and prayers" and not doing more to protect people.
Two interfaith services are planned for this week, allowing the community to come together. The first will be at 6 p.m. tonight at First United Methodist Church, 200 W. Lampkin St., called "Praying for Peace: A Service of Grief and Hope." The public is invited, and is not restricted to Christianity, but is open to people of all faiths.
"We wanted to provide a place for people to respond prayerfully," said Jake Adams-Wilson, associate pastor at FUMC. "There's been a lot of responses to this shooting recently, and we just wanted to provide a place where people could pray and recognize there is a range of reactions and different emotions. We will have different prayers for the occasion. We wanted this to be open to whoever would want to participate, so we invited other officials from other churches as well."
For more information on the story, see our June 14 edition.