Who Knew?

 

     Who knew?

     Jessie Wilczewski, seen above, certainly didn't.

     Jessie was just starting her sixth shift at the Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart on November 22 when Andre Bing walked into the break room and began shooting. There were about 15 people in that room when Bing, Jessie's overnight shift supervisor, opened up, eventually killing six people. Jessie did what any normal human would do and dove under a table. Bing found her and ordered her to get up so she did.

     He then placed the hot barrel of the gun against her forehead and said, "Jessie, go home."

     So she did.

     Bing had been written up several times by his subordinates for his bizarre, baleful behavior and Walmart, true to form, did nothing but demote him. He was lowered to shift supervisor, meaning he did the same work but he got paid less to do it. This only fostered his resentment over what he considered harassment from his coworkers.

 

     I discovered Jessie through a CNN interview that was conducted by Erica Hill less than 24 hours after the shooting. I'll warn you, if you haven't already seen it, it's tough to watch. You can see the PTSD that's just forming and the survivor's guilt over leaving her coworkers to die. You certainly can't blame her for running out when told to- She had a 15 month-old son waiting for her at home.

     Jessie gave another interview to the Washington Post in which she goes more deeply into her guilt for leaving behind her coworkers but she desperately wants to make it known to the surviving relatives that they did not die alone. In fact, this was she told the WaPo:

     “The only reason I spoke out is to let the families know that they weren’t alone in their last moments. Somebody was at least there... I couldn’t imagine my son not having me here. I’m blessed for that part, but I feel horrible being here. Because there was other families that lost their mom or their loved ones and they’re not here. The guilt from that has been eating me alive."

      It was supposed to be just a fulltime job at least a bridging a gap from one phase in her life to the next. Bing bought one of the guns he used in the mass shooting just that day. A few minutes later, seven were dead and Jessie was the last survivor in that break room (others ran out, whom Bing immediately chased).

     Who knew? Well, Walmart knew he was a ticking time bomb. In fact, during one disciplinary review, a manager told Bing he had "a demonic aura" about him. Yet, they did nothing but exacerbate his growing resentment.

     This is why one of Jessie's former coworkers is suing Walmart for $50,000,000 and I hope she gets every penny, plus interest. In fact, the law firm representing her hopes it grows into a class action lawsuit.

     So, after watching that heartbreaking CNN interview, I looked up Jessie Wilczewski on Facebook and, due to her unique name, I found her immediately. I sent her a friend request and she almost immediately accepted.

     Now, at the time, I had no plans to write a post about her. I just wanted to get her side of the story and perhaps console her by telling her she has nothing to be ashamed of. She's not an action hero, she's a 28 year-old single mom who was given a easy out in the midst of an abrupt, horrifying situation. And she took it because she knew her little boy needed her.

     Jessie told me on Facebook Messenger that she hadn't left her house once because she was simply too terrified to leave. Who can blame her? I gave her my thoughts on Bing's mindset at the exact moment he ordered her to go home. She'd told Erica Hill on CNN that she'd had one other conversation with Bing in which she said it was difficult raising a child while working an overnight shift. But, for five days, she'd somehow made it work.

     I told her that Bing remembered that she had a toddler at home and, since she was a new hire, she wasn't one of the ones who'd allegedly made life difficult for Bing. So, I told her, in the last moments of his life, he wanted to show one last act of mercy, do one passably good deed in the midst of all that carnage and bloodshed. He knew he wouldn't survive that night and he gave a single mother the chance to go home and be with her child.

     She still doesn't understand why he'd let her go. Perhaps, in her raging survivor's guilt, she cannot process that possibility because she doesn't think she was deserving of that final act of grace. 

     Her son's grandfather set up a GoFundMe campaign for her but so far, they've fallen far short of their $20,000 goal and have raised just $2910 at the time I'm writing this, over a third of that coming from just one person.

     Yet, while putting up a link to her GoFundMe page is the least I could do for her, this is still not the reason I'm writing this.

      I mentioned that Jessie told me that she was terrified at the thought of leaving her house. Last night, she worked up the nerve to go to the local 7-11 and, according to her latest Facebook post, this is what happened:

      "Tonight at 1040 I left my house just to go to 711 to grab 2 bottled sodas and when I went to check out and pay some Asshole guy comes up and puts a damn gun in my face along with the 2 711 employees. Again my life was almost taken by a man with shaky hands holding a gun. I’m done. I’m never leaving my house . And I am done being in Portsmouth. IM moving if it’s the last thing I do!!!!!!"

      Yes, you read that right. She went out of doors for the first time in nearly two weeks right after surviving a mass shooting and almost immediately had another gun stuck in her face. That kind of bad luck is unimaginable and if an author of thrillers tried to get that insane coincidence past an editor or their readers, they'd be laughed out of the business for lazy writing.

     That's how pervasive the gun culture is in Virginia and all over the South. A survivor of a mass shooting can't even go out for the first time in two weeks without walking into a holdup involving a loaded gun.

     The guns that Bing purchased were all legal. Every one. And yet, the only country on earth where this routinely happens throws up its hands and insists there's nothing that can be done about it.

    

     Now, it's up to you whether you want to donate to this poor girl's cause. She told me just a few minutes ago that she's too frightened to leave her house even though she's low on food. She is so psychologically fragile right now it's hard to imagine but if you want a glimpse of the hell in which she's now living, just watch her CNN interview.

     My main reason for writing this is to simply say that this girl cannot literally keep dodging bullets forever, nor should she have to. None of us should have to live through a Richard Donner action movie every time they set foot outside their house. The right wing has famously been viciously opposing any form of gun control, which is why we have states and counties in which children, domestic abusers and even the legally blind are permitted to carry firearms.

     And the "good guy with a gun" canard is wearing awfully thin because they simply didn't arrive in time because Andre Bing committed suicide.