Trauma can continue after gunshots stop

The shots triggered chaos. And they might continue to trigger anxiety for the foreseeable future.

Hotshots Bar and Grill in Cape Girardeau was packed March 4, even more than usual, when gunshots sounded near the pool tables. That's according to Matthew Canady, who was among as many as 100 people to experience the mass shooting. He said when he arrived about a half-hour before the gunshots were fired, most of the tables were occupied. He and his friends had to take a seat in the back of the restaurant.

Five people were injured. Three have been arrested. The shooting began at the pool tables, where a verbal disagreement escalated to a fight and quickly evolved into a gunfight involving three people firing shots. There is still a long way to go before the entirety of the event is understood.

But what is certain is that five people were physically injured, four were innocent bystanders. But many more suffered psychologically.

The conditions of those with physical injuries are unknown. A spokesman for the Cape Girardeau Police Department said he did not know the condition of the victims, nor how many had been released from the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon, March 14.

But psychologists and those who have experienced mass shootings in the past say witnesses will have to deal with the trauma they experienced March 4.

Canady said he hasn't had any ill effects from the shooting, but one of his friends has found it difficult to rebound and resume work after scrambling to safety that night. Several other people contacted by the Southeast Missourian said they did not want to speak about the event.

"It was pretty wild," Canady said. "I went to talk to a couple of girls I knew, I took two steps and, in a way, the world went silent and I heard a pop, pop, pop."

Canady said he only heard three gunshots, but he said there must have been more due to the number of people injured.

"I looked over and saw the smoke instantly from the gunshot. We knew what it was."

Canady said when the shots were fired, there was an intense silence followed by screams and a mass rush toward the exits.

"I threw a table over, jumped over a table and started to run out a door."

He and his friends stayed together and they rushed out the back door to the street where he and others realized that one friend had gone to the restroom before the shots were fired. Canady said he ran back in to retrieve his friend, and people were still screaming. He said he saw a rush of people pushing and shoving, trying to escape out the front doors. He helped pull a man and his wife out from under a table and escorted them toward the exit when he saw his friend.

He said when he went back into the building he noticed that just about all the chairs in the place were overturned, and many of the tables were as well.

By the time he and his friend exited the building, he said he saw police arriving with AR-15s drawn and getting ready to enter the building. Police spokesman Robert Newton said police were on the scene in about two minutes.

Those two minutes before police arrived were traumatic, and the shots that rang out were probably enough to cause those in the building to look at the world differently.

Southeast Missouri State University professor Tamara Buck said she recently met with a student who was struggling after witnessing the shooting. Buck said the student was within 10 feet of the shooter, saw the shots being fired and people being hit.

"The student walked into my office for an advising appointment, and I looked at her, and said 'What's wrong?'" Buck said. "She was visibly distraught. In the first 15 seconds, she fell apart and started crying. She explained what happened and said she was having trouble being around crowds. I just canceled her appointment and told her go to counseling services to get some help right now. So we're talking to our students about this. We're aware of it and we recognize the trauma people are dealing with with these increased number of shootings."

Paul Gillespie knows how that student feels. Gillespie is a photojournalist who escaped death during the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in 2018. Gillespie was working in the newspaper office when a man with a shotgun blasted through the glass window, entered the office and began shooting.

He said there were crisis counselors available in the hours following the event, but when asked what advice he'd give to others who have survived mass shootings he said, "You really should talk to a therapist. I'm really messed up in the head, but I'd be much more messed up if I didn't have a therapist."

Gillespie said he is glad to hear no one was killed in the Cape Girardeau shooting, but added that those injured will have quite a bit of trauma to unpack. "I can't imagine having to deal with the mental side and the physical side at the same time," he said of the injured victims.

Gillespie said he still deals with certain triggers, such as fireworks that he wasn't expecting and public arguments. He said he went into a store where a woman was yelling, and he began having feelings of panic that she could break out a gun at any moment.

He said he's also hypervigilant now, always sits with his back to the wall in restaurants, is always examining every place for threats. "If something looks off, I get nervous and that never really goes away."

The most important thing, he said, is "People need to find somebody they can talk to. Don't keep it balled in. It was a lot to handle."

That's really good advice, according to Andrew Ebert, a psychotherapist at the Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau.

"The worst thing you can do is stay at home and hide in a hole for the rest of your life," Ebert said. "The last thing someone needs in the long term is a safe space. Some people might have a worldview that, you know, all people are good. It's learning that their worldview isn't how things are. There is evil in the world and malevolent people. Resistance to that isn't to become afraid, but brave enough to face things. In some cases of trauma, people are encouraged to join martial arts, or something like that, to bolster their sense of safety but learn how to be brave despite that evil existing."

Ebert said that even talking to a friend or a pastor is a beneficial way to process the trauma and function better. He said journaling can help if a person isn't yet comfortable enough to talk to a counselor or therapist, but "if you're getting a few weeks or a month and haven't had relief, definitely at least talk to your doctor."

Ebert said traumatic events such as the one at Hotshots can trigger the part of the brain that releases the chemical cortisol into the body. Cortisol puts your body in a heightened stress response and kicks in adrenaline.

The Mayo Clinic explains on its website that "when stressors are always present and you constantly feel under attack, that fight-or-flight reaction stays turned on. The long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body's processes."

Ebert said it's normal for those who have experienced such a traumatic event to have nightmares and feel anxiety in the days following. But if the feeling of anxiety continues a month or more afterward, he said it's important for the person to seek help.

Ebert said the counseling center has crisis counseling available for those with immediate needs. He added that the university has counseling available for students.

Canady, who lives in Scott County, said he hasn't lost any sleep or felt anxious, but he has had a heightened sense of awareness since the shooting.

The Hotshots shooting meets the definition of a mass shooting by the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an event in which at least four people are shot or killed. The organization does not parse the definition based on the circumstances leading up to the shooting. Based on that definition, March 4 marked the first mass shooting in Cape Girardeau's history. The mass shooting is one of 100 mass shootings so far this year in the United States. This is the first time 100 mass shootings have occurred by the first week of March.

Cape Girardeau police arrested three individuals connected to the incident. They are: Ranell Robinson, 43, Cape Girardeau; Tyler Banks, 24, Cape Girardeau; and Jeremiah Twiggs, 39, Cape Girardeau.

Robinson was charged with felony unlawful possession of a firearm, felony assault in the second degree and felony armed criminal action. Banks was charged with felony assault second degree and felony armed criminal action. Twiggs was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.

Twiggs has a long criminal history with numerous assault and drug charges. Robinson has been convicted of several DWIs, driving while revoked/suspended, resisting and interfering with an arrest.

The manager on duty at Hotshots declined to comment Monday, March 13.