#atozchallenge : V is for Violence

This isn't going to be one of my normal blog posts.  It's a rant of sorts.
Yesterday at work, we hear over the intercom "Children can do gross motor in the gym".  There is a Head Start Preschool in the building we work in.  I figured they were outside doing work or a strange dog was wondering around.  An hour later, we hear an announcement "School is on Lock In, Nobody is to come in or out of the building.  This is not a drill" and my coworker and I didn't know what was going on.  I text my boss and she finds out from the school district that a guy had been shot and the suspect was at large.  She calls me at the same time people walk into our office.  I ask them how they got in as the school was on lock in and she said security let her in.  I went down to security and asked them why they let someone in our office during a lock in.  They said they figured we would be conducting business as usual.  The answer was no, we aren't.  Why should we let people in our office when there was a shooting suspect on the loose?  And the lady they let in...well, she's threatened to beat me up personally many times.  They didn't let anyone else in until the lock in was over and after the two security let in, we locked our own doors to ensure no one else would be able to enter our office.
So, what does this have to do with violence?
A man was shot around 8:15 am a block from my work.  He was shot because a random man walked up to him and asked him for a cigarette and he didn't give him one.  The man asked him 'why he was lying to him?" and that he "knew he had a cigarette for him".  The man that was shot was fixing a gas main in the area.  The man that was shot was 23 years old, had a good job and a family to support.  The man that was shot died.  The gas company pulled all their other crews off the street.  The police searched for hours for the suspect.  The man got away with taking a life because he didn't have a cigarette to give him.
Since I have worked in this building, there have been two bodies found across the street, a man stabbed in the middle of the street and our office was broken into and destroyed. 
I was walking into work at 8:15 am.  Children were walking into the school at 8:15 am.  A random murder in broad daylight in front of so many people.
And the description they got of the murderer...a blue hoodie and gray pants.  Half the people we see in the office were blue hoodies and gray pants. 
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article209764894.html
The second picture on the surveillance picture was outside of the parking lot that I parked in yesterday. 
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article209733594.html


This is too close for comfort.  I have no solutions.  I do not get into political debates. But I am shaken and I am scared and it takes a lot to get me that way.