Op-Ed: New COVID strains are coming. It’s no time to let down our guard
With New Yorkers facing a novel coronavirus pandemic of unprecedented proportions, the question comes up often: What if this happens during one of our regular high school activities? What would you do?
“What if there is a shooting?” I am asked. “Could you try to get your friends to stop?”
When I say “shooting,” I am not just referring to an active shooter, a random act of violence. I am referring to an event that would be deemed an emergency by the local authorities.
New York has a relatively low crime rate — just over 5 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to numbers from 2016. But that number is misleading. There is an all-time high of almost 2,000 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, which is more than double the annual rate of murders in the city.
We all know the story of the “Three Stooges” from the old Andy Griffith Show as we hear about the “Emmett Till” case in 1955. And we’ve all seen the movie, “Con Air,” with Tom Cruise’s character trying to keep a small plane in the sky.
These events are not random. They are the result of a deliberate, calculated plan. In those few moments before the fatal event, the person who commits this crime or the person who was killed, usually with a weapon, would decide that it was worth it. It will be remembered by some and will define them.
At least, that’s the theory. We’ve seen these types of attacks before in the history of human civilization.
The recent shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, is just another example. A student killed nine people and injured 19 others on April 20 at Santa Fe High School. We can�