Hours after she escaped the Columbine High School shooting, 14-year-old Missy Mendo slept between her parents in bed, still wearing the shoes she had on when she fled her math class. She wanted to be ready to run.
Twenty-five years later, and with Mendo now a mother herself, the trauma from that horrific day remains close on her heels.
It caught up to her when 60 people were shot dead in 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas, a city she had visited a lot while working in the casino industry. Then again in 2022, when 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.
It’s hard to think back before school shootings became a regular occurrence. Columbine was so shocking. Schools had no idea how to handle it.
They still don’t.
don’t? we have both thoughts AND prayers