Ky. community processing tragedy
Shock gives way to ‘What are we going to do?’
BENTON, Ky. — A tight-knit rural community reflected Wednesday on a school shooting that killed two teenagers, injured 18 and sent hundreds of others fleeing for their lives.
Police have not publicly identified the 15-year-old accused of opening fire Tuesday at Marshall County
High School. Officers said he walked into the “commons” area and immediately began shooting. Witnesses said he fired a single shot, paused and then emptied the handgun of ammunition before he tried to escape and was arrested.
Throughout a community where practically everyone knows one another — Benton, the nearest town, has about 4,300 people — people were initially shocked, saying “We can’t believe this is happening to us,” Patrick Adamson, a church youth director, said Wednesday.
Dominico Caporali, whose 16-year-old daughter watched her classmate repeatedly pull the trigger, expressed a similar conviction.
“This community doesn’t have violence that most communities do. All these kids know each other, they hang out with each other,” he told The Associated Press.
But no community is immune to society’s ills — not even Marshall County, where over a four-year stretch ending with the 2016-17 school year, the high school had
317 reports of bullying and other harassment, one first-degree assault and nine other assaults or acts of violence, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.
Now, as disbelief gives way to grief, Adamson said people are already asking “What are we going to do about it? How are we going to come together?”
Many are leaning on their faith to cope, he said. His Baptist church was gathering Wednesday to share prayers and help teens talk about the shootings. President Donald Trump sent his “thoughts and prayers” in a tweet more than 24 hours after the shootings, and he shared his condolences with Gov. Matt Bevin on Wednesday in a phone call.
The grief is overwhelming for the families of Bailey Nicole Holt and Preston Ryan Cope, the two 15-yearolds who were killed. Secret Holt told KFVS that her daughter was a “perfect sweet soul,” and the “horrific act of violence” is “just unbearable.”