Too Close to Home

      Sometimes things come too close to home. Almost a week ago in Chapel Hill three young people were shot and killed at a condominium complex. They were killed by a man who had a dispute with them over a parking space. Some say it was a racial killing, since they were Muslim. I’m focusing on parking right now and moving to hate crime later because 1. We are not positive of the facts, since it is an on-going investigation and 2. The parking thing at this particular complex is no joke. I know because I lived it.

            For several months during my senior year of college and after I graduated, until I moved to New York, I lived with a friend who had a place in the complex. It was lovely. Nice two and three bedroom condos with bathrooms for each. Perfect for college students and young professionals, which is what most of the neighborhood was made of. But the parking situation there was ridiculous. Really, should you clearly remember parking problems at a place you lived in college? You shouldn’t, but I do. I do because of the way I was treated over parking while I lived there.

            Here is the thing with parking spaces and condos: you are assigned parking spaces to go with the condos, but when these were built, apparently they didn’t think of how to ratio the parking spaces. My feeling has always been one parking space per bedroom- so if you had a two bedroom, two spaces, three bedroom, three. It seems pretty fair to me, and since most of the condos were rented to college kids, chances were good that there were multiple people living in them and each had cars.

But you only got one. So each condo only had ONE assigned space, though in most there were two people living there. Your other option was to park on the streets running in front of the condos, and I think there may have been an overflow lot somewhere but can’t be sure. At the end of each parking section were two very coveted Visitor’s spots. Located right next to the units, they became where you wanted to park when your roommate had gotten home before you. Of course, after your neighbors knew your car, you would find nasty notes on your windshield. I think in the time I was there I received about 10 semi-threatening post its, most from residents who ironically, I suspect, also wanted to be in the visitor’s spots. Did I think anything of it? Not really. After all, I was 22, and in a “you snooze you lose” mode. But I also never imagined it being carried further. And it wasn’t- I was yelled at in person a couple of times but never felt like any bodily harm was coming my way.

            Fast forward to now. Three people, shot execution style in their own home, by a man who openly carried his pistol on his belt. I don’t feel the need to go into why I don’t believe in open carry, because this is why. I have no doubt that pro-open carry people will pepper blogs and newspaper articles about how this was a “bad guy with a gun”.   Because truthfully, my opinion is, why would you carry a gun if you hoped to never use it? The statistics don’t lie- introducing a gun to a situation on either side will be much more likely to end in tragedy. As it did here.  While I’m aware he could have killed them with his bare hands, it also occurs to me that they would have been more likely to have survived had there not been a gun at the ready.

            But I digress.  My focus here is not who should be allowed to carry weapons, but why “only the good die young” (Thanks, Billy Joel). These particular students who died were not only UNC and NC State students, they were really, really good people. The kind of people who volunteered their time to help feed the homeless in Durham, the kind of people who were planning a trip to Turkey to help Syrian refugees with their dental work. The kind of people whose death you cringe about. What makes it worse, for me at least, is that they really weren’t doing anything wrong. I’m with the occupants of the condos- there should be more parking, and when I look back, ethically it probably was wrong to use a Visitor’s space when I wasn’t actually visiting, but I also can’t imagine dying or killing someone over it.  Which leads into the hate crime aspect.

            Many in the Muslim community in Chapel Hill, and others, are asking for a federal investigation, that this is a hate crime. Truthfully, it does have the hallmarks for it. One man, radical thinking, shooting three people execution style in their own home, and then turning himself in.   People are afraid, and I am sad. I tear up when I hear on the radio that Muslim women are afraid to go get milk after dark, and dash to their car. I tear up when I think about what living in fear does to people. And I am angry. I am angry because this is America, and we are a country built on FREEDOM. Not freedom for some, but for all. We have documents hundreds of years old supporting these freedoms, and encouraging people to come here so they can have access to them.  

            The other feeling I have is helplessness. Helplessness because living in fear is no way to live, but millions are doing just that, every day.   Helplessness because there is no “should have”, “could have”. They were not in a “wrong place, wrong time” situation. They were at home, with a family member visiting. Maybe they were getting dinner ready, and then opened the door for a neighbor. I would have done exactly the same thing.  I feel helpless because I worry that there is so much anger, fear, and hate right now in our country these incidents will increase.   And that the next one will be even closer to home.