Death and Killing in Pomona, New Jersey

While I've been trying to focus on the celebratory mood of the Cubs victory and the potentiality of even better things, locally here around campus, we've been drenched with sad news. Last week, two Stockton students both passed away on the same weekend (one of my students went back to his dorm room and found his roommate not sleeping but dead). That sadness was quadrupled today when there was a hostage standoff about a mile from campus that left three people dead and another three people critically injured. The AC Press writes about the shooter: “Residents described him Monday as a mild-mannered man who liked to deer hunt, but also as someone who kept a cabinet of guns inside his trailer and liked to dress in fatigues that had imitation military insignia sewn onto them.” Great.

I hate the fact that my students are coming into class with excuses like “Sorry I had to miss class, I was at one of my best friends' funeral,” and “Sorry I was late, there was a hostage standoff and the police wouldn't let me by,” and even more sorry that none of these excuses are fabrications.