Captain hurt, sailors missing after collision
The latest mass shooting – this one targeting politicians – could finally bring change.
Seven crew members are missing and at least three injured after a United States Navy destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel south of Tokyo Bay in Japan yesterday.
The Japanese Coast Guard said the US ship suffered some flooding but was not in danger of sinking, while the merchant vessel was able to sail away under its own power.
Rescuers were searching for the seven sailors, who were thought to have been thrown into the sea or possibly trapped inside damaged sections of the destroyer, said coast guard spokesman Yoshihito Nakamura.
The US Navy said the USS Fitzgerald collided with the merchant ship in the early morning about 100 kilometres southwest of Yokosuka, in a rare incident on a busy waterway.
Three people aboard the destroyer had been medically evacuated, including the ship’s commanding officer, Commander Bryce Benson, who was reportedly in a stable condition after being airlifted to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, the navy said.
The other two injured were transferred to the hospital with lacerations and bruises, while other injuries were being assessed, it said.
‘‘The USS Fitzgerald suffered damage on her starboard side above and below the waterline,’’ the navy said.
It said the full extent of the damage to the ship and the injuries to its crew were still being determined. The Fitzgerald was operating under its own power, ‘‘although her propulsion is limited’’.
A spokesman for the Fleet said the ship was back to Yokosuka under power at 3 knots (5kmh).
Aerial footage from Japanese TV network NHK showed a large dent in the destroyer’s starboard side. The images showed it had been US 7th heading its own struck next to its Aegis radar arrays, behind its vertical launch tubes, causing what appeared to be significant damage to the deck and to part of the radar.
A US defence official said there was flooding in three compartments. NHK showed sailors working to pump water from flooded sections of the ship’s starboard side.
It was unclear how the collision happened. ‘‘Once an investigation is complete, then any legal issues can be addressed,’’ the 7th Fleet spokesman said.
‘‘Right now we are focused on two things: the safety of the ship and the wellbeing of the sailors,’’ said Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the US Pacific Fleet.
The waterways approaching Tokyo Bay are busy with commercial vessels sailing to and from Japan’s two biggest container ports, in Tokyo and Yokohama.
The 7th Fleet said the collision was with the Philippine-flagged merchant vessel ACX Crystal. At around 29,000 tonnes displacement, it is about three times the size of the US warship.
Japan’s Coast Guard said of the 20 crew aboard the vessel were injured.
Most of the more than 200 sailors aboard the Fitzgerald would have been asleep in their berths, some of which were reportedly flooded.
Such incidents are rare. In May, the US Navy’s USS Lake Champlain collided with a South Korean fishing vessel, but both ships were able to operate under their own power.
The 7th Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, thanked none merchant the Japanese Coast Guard in a post on the fleet’s Facebook page.
Relatives of crew members were awaiting news of their loved ones.
‘‘Just heard the sweetest voice and saw a wonderful face. He’s okay. Thank you all for the prayers,’’ Rita Schrimsher of Athens, Alabama, tweeted after speaking with her 23-year-old grandson Jackson Schrimsher via Facetime.
‘‘It could have been worse so we’re grateful,’’ she said by phone.
Aerial television news footage showed that the Philippine ship’s port bow was dented and scraped, but it did not appear to have suffered any major structural damage.
The 7th Fleet said medical assistance, navy tugs and naval aircraft had been dispatched to help. Baseball is ‘‘America’s pastime’’, a term coined in the 1850s by propagandists for the sport who wanted to make it as popular in the US as cricket was in the UK.
Baseball is hot dogs and Bud Light and long, languid summer evenings. It is crowds of sunburned Americans singing the national anthem and Take Me Out To The Ballgame .Itis rabid Red Sox fans waiting 86 years to lift a curse and win a championship. Baseball is many things, but it’s generally not political, and it’s almost never violent.
This week, America’s pastime clashed with the national obsession with guns (perhaps America’s other pastime) and a toxic political environment.
A baseball diamond in Alexandria, Virginia, just 11km from Washington, DC, was the scene of a mass shooting with four injuries and one death (the gunman). Republican Congressmen were attending an early-morning practice ahead of the 2017 Congressional baseball game, an annual charitable event pitting Republicans against Democrats. The gunman, who was carrying a rifle and a handgun – in compliance with Virginia law – was reportedly a Bernie Sanders supporter upset at the election of Donald Trump.
Many hoped that this violent act might serve as a wakeup call to American leaders, from the president down, who have sunk to new lows in vilifying – even dehumanising – members and supporters of the opposing political party. There was some of that. Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority House leader Nancy Pelosi appeared together at the game with a shared message of toning down the rhetoric.
Trump, in a moment of reflection and calm, called for unity, although his advisor Kellyanne Conway, in a tonedeaf TV appearance, later suggested that the shooting stemmed from the fierce resistance to Trump – a politician who has coarsened political dialogue like no other in modern US history.
Outsiders have long scratched their heads at America’s gun culture – even understanding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is an important and foundational American right, born of revolution against English oppressors. At some point in the past 200 years, though, things went sideways.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to own or use a gun. But their easy availability, sometimes without background checks, to violent criminals, gangs, domestic abusers and the mentally ill has created a culture of death.
Just weeks ago, Trump relaxed Obama-era rules on allowing people with mental illness to buy guns. This week, Congress debated legislation to free up the availability of silencers. Since 2011, more than 100 bills seeking to circumscribe the free flow of arms and ammunition have been introduced but went nowhere, in part because of the close relationship between the National Rifle Association and the GOP.
I swear the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves. Should everyone exercise every right, unfettered, regardless of the cost?
And the cost is high. Although the NRA has been successful in halting government attempts to collect data on gun ownership and crime as a public health issue (which it most certainly is), a Harvard study collecting various data points over time was overwhelmingly stark: more guns means ‘‘more gun suicides and more total suicides, more gun homicides and more total homicides, and more accidental gun deaths’’.
Sandy Hook, Pulse Nightclub, Virginia Tech, Columbine. Frequent horror stories about 6-year-olds accidentally shooting their siblings. And now, Alexandria.
House Speaker Paul Ryan addressed Congress this week, saying ‘‘"You know, every day, we come here to test and challenge each other. We feel so deeply about the things we fight for and believe in. At times, our emotions can get the best of us. We are all imperfect. But we do not shed our humanity when we enter this chamber . . . for all the noise and fury, we are a family.
‘‘These were our brothers and sisters in the line of fire. These were our brothers and sisters who ran into danger and saved countless lives’’.
One wonders if now, because the victims are connected to the levers of power, American politicians – particularly Republicans – will turn away from NRA dollars and think carefully and pragmatically about the right balance between gun rights and safety. They didn’t do it for 20 children at Sandy Hook. They didn’t do it when Democratic congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head. If not now, when?