Oregon governor Tina Kotek reacts to Silver Rail Elementary school shooting
I keep thinking about the name, Silver Rail. It sounds like something from a children's book, a train that runs on moonlight or a bird with a bright stripe. And now it's attached to a shooting, and the governor has to find words that fit both the innocence and the horror. That's the part that gets me. We ask leaders to be human in these moments, but also to have answers, and they rarely have either.
Kotek's response, whatever she said, is part of a longer pattern. Every shooting brings the same ritual: the condolences, the calls for action, the silence that follows. I don't envy her position, but I'd want to know what she thinks changed after this one. Bend is a smaller city, a place where people move to feel safe. If it can happen there, the geography of safety gets a little smaller.
I don't have a solution, and I'm wary of anyone who says they do. But I'd like to think that a conversation with a governor about a school shooting could somehow break the loop, say something we haven't heard before. Maybe it can't. Maybe the best we get is a leader who listens and doesn't look away. That might be enough for now, and it might not be.