Gabrielle Linzy went to bed worrying about pre-calculus. Report cards came out at the end of the week, and Linzy, a senior at Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School in Arkansas, dreaded math.
She woke up at 4 a.m. to a knock on her bedroom door. It was her father, who asked Linzy and her three sisters to come into the living room at once. He had some bad news about their mother, who lived 80 miles away, in Forrest City.
He said their mom, Nashae Williams, had been shot and killed, along with two of their half-sisters, ages 6 and 9. Williams’ live-in boyfriend was the suspect.
As Linzy’s father told her this, the words didn’t make sense. She was in shock. She locked herself in the bathroom for awhile. Then she got dressed and put on her makeup for school.
She cried all day, and her mascara ran.
The nation mourned when 58 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the hail of bullets on Oct. 1 in Las Vegas. The scope of the violence was breathtaking, incomprehensible. But since then, more than 2,738 people have been shot in the U.S., according to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive. A reported 840 of them died.
For these tragedies, there is no national spotlight. But victims and their families face the same devastating consequences. They must plan funerals, miss work, make child care arrangements and pay exorbitant health care bills. And their communities struggle with the same mind-numbing sense of loss.
In the Chicago area, more than 600 miles away from Arkansas, the rain was coming down hard. Earl McKay was in the basement of his house, making sure the backup sump pump was working, and his fiancee got a call.
Something had happened to McKay’s 26-year-old niece, Simone. Decades earlier, McKay had helped her pregnant mother get to the hospital, and he considered Simone to be more like a daughter. Assuming she might have been in a car accident, he decided to go to a trauma center. But on the way, Simone’s dad called, saying she’d been shot and killed.
McKay said he had just seen Simone, a pre-med student at Chicago State University, at a family birthday party. The bubbly, pretty mother of two was making jokes, hanging out and doing makeup for other women. When they said their goodbyes, McKay expected they’d catch up the next day.
Simone had been found shot in the head on the steps outside of her home. She had lain outside in the rain for an hour before police came. The Chicago Tribune reported she was not wearing a raincoat.
Simone’s death has “shattered our family, the fabric,” said McKay. “The impact on us and her children has been tremendous,” he added, noting that “in our time of need, we’ve had an outpouring of love and support.”
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