Shots Fired in Terminal 2: A Witness to the Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting Reflects on America's Mass Shooting Epidemic
William Elliott Hazelgrove
(Author)
Description
On January 6, 2017, a lone gunman took five lives and wounded eight people at Fort Lauderdale Airport. This book is about the Lauderdale shooting told from the perspective of bestselling author William Hazelgrove, who just happened to be there with his wife and children. Though focused on one terrifying incident that the author witnessed, this story is also a prototype of American shootings showing the interplay of victims, police, media, the shooter, and what constitutes this peculiar American form of violence. The author documents the perverse chain of events that set the stage for this tragedy: the failure of police and the FBI to stop this troubled Iraq War veteran, who had earlier approached them and said point-blank that he was hearing voices telling him to kill others; the incredible fact that his weapon was taken and then given back to him, the very gun that would kill five people and shut down a major airport for forty-eight hours; and the circumstances of American society that allowed this gun to be checked through airport security as a legal firearm and then delivered to the killer, who casually strolled into a bathroom, loaded the pistol, and returned to the baggage claim area to start his murderous rampage. Interweaving his dramatic telling of his own experiences with a history of comparable shootings in America, the book presents both an anatomy of these horrifying events and the basis for understanding why they happen and what can be done to stop them.
Product Details
Price
$18.00
$16.74
Publisher
Prometheus Books
Publish Date
August 07, 2018
Pages
270
Dimensions
6.0 X 8.9 X 0.9 inches | 0.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781633883833
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About the Author
William Hazelgrove is a bestselling author whose books include Wright Brothers, Wrong Story: How Wilbur Wright Solved the Problem of Manned Flight; Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson; Forging a President: How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt; and Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair. His books have hit the National Bestseller List, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and have been included in Book of the Month Selections, Literary Guild Selections, Junior Library Guild Selections, and ALA Editor's Choice Awards. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer-in-Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway's birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications. He has been the subject of interviews in NPR's All Things Considered along with features in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Richmond Times Dispatch, USA Today, People, Channel 11, NBC, WBEZ, and WGN. He runs a political cultural blog, "The View from Hemingway's Attic" (www.theviewfromhemingwaysattic.com).
Reviews
""A riveting account of the terror and panic experienced by those present during the Fort Lauderdale airport mass shooting. Intensifying the experience was the exploitative media and the suspicious police, who were uncertain as to the presence of additional shooters. The resulting chaos and the throngs of passengers caught in the middle demonstrate the perils of allowing armed citizens into such venues. Hazelgrove also provides insight into the less-tangible psychological impact of such events on witnesses. This must-read book is greatly enriched by numerous short chapters on some of America's previous mass shootings, the Second Amendment, and America's gun culture." --Thomas Gabor, PhD, is a criminologist and author of Confronting Gun Violence in America "A spellbinding and gripping account of one family's terror at being caught up in a mass shooting, and how such an event can change lives forever. A master storyteller, Hazelgrove expertly weaves the personal dramas of the incident with vivid accounts of past shooting attacks and offers recommendations for what needs to be done to deal with this growing problem. An important and fascinating book." --Jeffrey D. Simon, PhD, author of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Understanding the Growing Threat "Hazelgrove provides a ground-level view of gun violence, experienced firsthand, and uses it as a springboard to examine mass shootings, gun habits, the media, the NRA, and much more. Hazelgrove writes in a straightforward, unadorned style that brings the reader along with him on a whirlwind tour of Americans and their guns. This is a unique and engaging book." --Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, SUNY Cortland, and author of The Politics of Gun Control and Guns across America "[This] book uses the Fort Lauderdale incident as a frame, but its real subject ismass shootings in the U.S. . . . . Hazelgrove is a talented writer, and it is impossible to read this deeply personal, questioning, powerful book without feeling sadness both for the victims of mass shootings but also, perhaps counterintuitively, for the shooters themselves, who might have followed a different course if they had received help when they needed it." --Booklist
