Thursday 16 June 2016

A personal take on the horrific events of today.

I was sitting on the side of the swimming pool today waving at the 3 year old splashing about during his lesson, browsing Facebook on my phone when I read the status, "Been a shooting in Birstall. Lock your doors."

A quick scan confirmed that the unthinkable had happened. A woman had been shot in the centre of Birstall.

My mum, sister and members of my extended family live and work in Birstall. A small market town in West Yorkshire it seemed unbelievable that anything like this could possibly happen there.

I called my mum who confirmed that it had happened in the last hour, she'd brought the kids inside and locked the doors. As far as everyone knew the gunman was still on the loose and people were rightly terrified.

The rumour mill was soon in full swing. She had been stabbed as well as shot. There was more than one gunman. They were still on the loose. It was a targeted attack. She'd intervened in an altercation. 

What was clear was that no-one really knew what had happened.

At home I watched the rolling news coverage in disbelief. The market square I've driven up and down countless times swarming with armed police and journalists. The bustle of market day replaced by something much more sinister.

It's at times like this I should step away from social media. There's nothing that Facebook and Twitter could add to the situation that I need or want to know. But I didn't.

I soon found myself in a bit of a Facebook spat about the claim that the shooter had shouted "Britain First" before shooting. To my mind there was no evidence to support this and turning the incident into a racist/religious/xenophobic attack without proper facts simply feeds hatred and ignorance. Some people seemed to think I was defending the shooter. That I wouldn't feel this way if the shooter had been Muslim. This was an argument I was never going to win and so I stepped away from the conversation. 

In the last hour I've read that the eye-witness was misquoted, but this was immediately tweeted and reported (or copied and pasted) by other media outlets and the damage was done. The BBC are now running the story that the shooter may have shouted 'Put Britain First'.

We might not know whether the shooter shouted 'Put Britain first' or 'Britain First' but the media, social media and members of the public were very quick to draw their own conclusions based on a potentially incorrect quote from one eye-witness. 

The way the media, or at least some media outlets, operate in this country disgusts me. No longer content with reporting the news they seem intent on creating or manipulating it for their own gain. The need to create the most inflammatory click-bait headlines seems to over-ride any form of decency or common sense. 

What better news story than to link an attack on an MP to the upcoming referendum? Don't even get me started on the bile that spewed forth from the Twitter account of Nick Griffin today. 

The motives of the shooter are as of yet unknown but there are those who feel the need to slap a label on it. Was it terrorism? Was it extremism? Was it politics in action?

No. It was murder. 

Jo Cox was a wife, a mother, a proud Yorkshire lass, and she was ripped from her family through the actions of one man. Her husband released an incredible statement this evening. "She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous." 

From one proud Yorkshire lass to another, rest in peace Jo. 

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