Are We Safe In Oneonta, New York?

Yesterday's shooting incident at the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City gave me a moment of reflective pause. The lone fatality of the shooting was a media and radio personality local to Kansas City, and filled a role very similar to mine.

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What happened in KC?

On news reports following the shooting, people continuously noted that it was the children that were mostly calm, and knew exactly what to do due to active shooter drills at school. As a Gen-X person, the most we had to do was walk outside during a fire drill at school. How times have changed.

My thoughts turned to things closer to home and safety in general. Yesterday's parade was staffed with hundreds of law enforcement members, and attendance was around one million in total.

What about closer to home?

Yes, Oneonta is much smaller in size and scope. We've learned from recent history that anything can happen. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said yesterday “We never would have thought that we — along with Chiefs players, along with fans, hundreds of thousands of people — would be forced to run for our safety today.”

While anything can happen at any time, I feel that there is a general air of safety around large events in Oneonta, but saying it could never happen here would be glib at best. It's best to be vigilant at any time, no matter where you might find yourself.

As someone who is in the public eye, writing and on-air, I have fielded vitriol from the general public over stories, memes, and headlines a few didn't agree with, while the detractors tried to get people onto the negative bandwagon. While I'm unfazed, in the back of my mind I always remember to check my surroundings.

In our current climate, anything could happen at any time.