The Shots in Terminal One in the Lauderdale Shooting

We were waiting for our plane which wasn't flying out for five hours and we were just about to go get something to eat when we heard the shots. Three or maybe four. My wife and two daughters and son took off one way and I lost them in the stampede out the door. I turned and ducked down behind a cab with a woman and her baby in a stroller. We looked across the street. Police cars were flying down the street and people were ducking under anything they could find. But I had to find my family.

I went back toward Terminal One and then inside. It was empty. Just some shoes, luggage, sunglasses. I went back out and found my wife and children hiding under some plastic bins. I got up my youngest daughter and ran toward the media trucks keeping a low profile. Everyone was hunched  over. I saw my wife and other daughter making their way toward me. Terrified they laid flat on the cement while cops and journalists ran past. Then I was up again and saw my son coming toward me.

He had been frisked by the police when he ran out trying to get into any car he could find. He said he saw the smoke from the shots. And then suddenly there was a hastily arranged news conference with the police chief declaring there was only one shooter in Terminal 2. My wife and kids were still on the ground. I made my way back toward Terminal one that was full of police. I was able to get our luggage back five hours later. No shooter has been identified in Terminal One as of this writing.

The Horror of Ft Lauderdale Shooting

You first see her around the pool. You are all refugees from the shooting waiting to get out of Florida. She is being held up by the hotel people. It is the kind of grief you have never seen and that is when you know she is one of the victims of the shooting. She goes away and that's when you decide to get a drink. It has been a long day and there is nothing to do but wait for your flight in two days back to Chicago. So you go into the hotel bar and a man walks in with red eyes and the bartender says he can have anything he wants and that the hotel will pick up the tab for his room and order dinner. He just mouths thank you.

You take your drink and someone asks him just then. Were you there. Yes. My father in law was shot through the eye and it went through his brain and out the back. There is silence. Was his wife there? My mother in law has passed. You don't know what to say. The small hotel bar is quiet. Even the bartender has red eyes. You take your drink but the heaviness is so bad you go back to your table and pull out that Cuban cigar you picked up in Honduras. Anything to get rid of this.

And then you see them again. The woman who lost her mother and maybe her father is in the middle surrounded by family. They are a silent procession around the pool with their suitcases. They are leaving for a hotel closer to the hospital. So that is what a shooting really looks like. You finish your drink and light your cigar because nothing can dull the horror.

Madam President