At about 4:20 p.m. on a cold Rhode Island Saturday, a message from Brown University flashed up on cellphones all over campus — everyone should run or take cover from an active shooter.
Hours later, horror erupted again, on the other side of the globe, as two gunmen sprayed bullets into a Hanukkah celebration on iconic Bondi Beach in Sydney.
At Brown, two students were killed and nine others were injured. At least 15 people died at Bondi Beach, and more than three dozen remain in the hospital.
here’s little, circumstantially, linking the outrages.
Both featured the now-routine rituals of mass shootings, including jerky cellphone footage of people fleeing for their lives. And two communities were left shattered by the same incomprehensible reality — of death that came suddenly for people gunned down as they went about daily life.
In Rhode Island, students checked in for a final exam. Two victims will now never go home for the holidays. In Sydney, the dead perished on a balmy evening at the beach.
They were victims of a modern curse.
This article is excerpted from CNN.
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