The Alert

One of the first things I learned is that you can speak publicly in mixed adult company about a shooting, a murder, and everyone stops talking, turns to face you. Utter the word “rape” and heads turn away, as if you’ve suddenly said something inappropriate, indelicate. Obscene.

There are so many David Stricklands in the world.

I receive a Google alert every time the name is referred to online. There is a David Strickland Street in Fort Worth, Texas. There is the young actor of Suddenly Susan fame who hanged himself in a hotel room. There is the Indigenous audio engineer who promotes the rise of Indigenous hip hop artists in Canada. Among the many David Stricklands, there is a judge, an attorney, a professor, an organist, a linebacker, a senior research physicist, a jail chaplain, and more.

For several years, whenever I received a new alert for the name, I felt the hot sting of adrenaline and cortisol rush through my body. Too many times, alerts brought news of the murder trial being significantly delayed, yet again. Or an appeal loomed. Or Strickland’s attorneys had talked to the local paper, stirring things up in the court of public opinion, claiming the real killer was on the streets while an innocent David Strickland served a life sentence without parole. Alerts arrived with links to headlines saying: “New Trial Sought” and “Could David Strickland be exonerated in 2012 Portland double shooting?” I had to remind myself that the man had already been found guilty and sentenced, based on evidence from his own gun and his own laptop—a threatening, racist, misogynist, hate-crime-of-a-letter that he addressed to Kristene Chapa’s father.

That brainless alert with no thought or feeling can suddenly announce a false alarm or an explosive report that changes everything.