GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Two more mass shootings over the weekend, one in El Paso, Texas and one in Dayton, Ohio are a scary reality for many people.
Surveillance video shows people running for their lives as gunshots pierce the air in Dayton, Ohio. Memorials are now piling up to mourn the 9 people killed on Sunday.
And in El Paso, Texas, white crosses covered in flowers and hand-written messages pay tribute to the 22 people gunned down while shopping on Saturday.
“It’s going to take a long time for those communities to rebuild and come back from that,” said Chief Dean Smith with the Oshkosh Police Department.
“It just breaks your heart and it makes me worry that no community in our country is immune from these mass shooting situations,” said Chief Andrew Smith with the Green Bay Police Department.
That’s because no community is immune. John Dale knows that better than most.
“I’ve been to two separate mass shootings,” said Dale, a retired colonel for the Broward County Florida Sheriff’s Office.
Dale responded to a deadly rampage that killed five people at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale airport in 2017. The retired sheriff’s colonel also responded to the 2018 high school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland.
“Parkland Florida was one of the safest towns in Florida up until that point,” said Dale. “I can tell you if it can happen there, it can happen in Wisconsin as well.”
Dale was in Green Bay Wednesday to talk to police chiefs from around the state about the lessons he learned during the Parkland shooting. He hopes that information will help prevent these tragedies in other communities.
“Certainly in Oshkosh were trying to see what we can do to better prepare,” said Chief Dean Smith.
“These are the kind of things that make chiefs like me stay up at night, making sure we’re doing everything we possibly can to prevent it,” said Chief Andrew Smith.
Dale said the mass shootings are a reminder that everyone needs to be vigilant.
“I think maybe our focus in law enforcement is we need to start attempting to put together the dots and try to determine who the at-risk people are so we can get them the help in advance.”
Wisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, was also at the conference Tuesday.
He tells FOX 11 he hopes that the recent tragedies add a sense of urgency to local legislatures.
