Capitol Hill Shooting: Child Unharmed?

Within an hour we learned a car had careened into a White House barricade, then backed up, smashing into a police vehicle before racing away, leaving an injured police officer in its wake. The driver then led the Capitol Police force on a wild and dangerous chase from the White House to the U.S. Capitol.

Later that evening I was surprised to learn that the driver was an unarmed woman from Connecticut who authorities say suffered from post-partum depression after giving birth one year earlier. Medication had been prescribed from which, according to the New York Times, she had recently been weaned. The driver, shot to death in a barrage of bullets aimed at her car, was not alone in her vehicle. Police discovered the woman’s 1-year-old daughter strapped into a car seat in the back seat of the automobile.

I am sure there will be much debate among the public, Capitol Police, journalists, even Congress, whether the police acted appropriately in shooting this unarmed woman. But my thoughts keep returning to the little girl I saw carried from the car: a 1-year-old who witnessed her mother fatally shot before her eyes, and before the eyes of most of the nation. I was jarred when I listened to the reporters repeating the same phrase over and over: “The mother was shot but her daughter was unharmed.” 

While I understand these reporters were referring to the fact that the little girl was not physically harmed in any way that was visible, I cringe at the notion that she was unharmed. With a high degree of certainty, based on years of accepted research, I feel certain when I say that the child in this incident has most certainly been harmed, both psychologically and yes, even physically.

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