Panic at Pride

swag that we didn't get to toss to the crowd
because we were running away.

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Well that wasn’t on my bucket list, but I have now had that quintessential American experience: running with a panicked crowd fleeing in fear of a mass shooting.

Fortunately for the hundreds of thousands of folks at today’s Capital Pride parade the altercation that sparked the panic was not a gunman bent on mass murder, but when you see a wave of people running at you with terror in their eyes you don’t stop to inquire into the details. You run.

I was with a group of More Light Presbyterians waiting to walk in the parade. I've walked it with MLP most years since 2003, and many of those years with our kids. I was glad I didn't have young children with me tonight as we ran away from an unknown fear.
We ran several blocks down 22^nd Street away from DuPont Circle until we were safely behind a garbage truck that was blocking off traffic to the parade area. A DC cop was at that check point, and she calmly told us that there was a suspect in custody and no active shooter, and would we please not run because someone might get injured.

At that point, people started checking in with friends elsewhere along the route or just hugging the folks around them grateful to be safe.

This is America in the age of easy access to high powered rapid fire weaponry. It’s a time when people gathered on a beautiful summer evening to celebrate the gift of love and diversity can be instantly reduced to a scrambling panic by reports of gunfire.

Fortunately, in this case, there was never an active shooter. But we’ve all been trained – either actually trained in schools or workplaces or trained by the experience of consuming countless news reports. We’ve been trained to believe that it could happen anywhere at any time. We’ve been trained to expect it.

The saddest part of the experience to me was that it came as no surprise. When I saw the wave of people running my direction I immediately thought, “active shooter: run.”

That is the America we have allowed to devolve all around us. It’s not the country I want to live in.

It is, however, my country. So I will do what I can to help something better come to life here. I’m posting this and making another contribution to Everytown for Gun Safety. I invite you to contribute to a gun violence prevention effort. In the name of love.