Photo from Gerald Herbert

Truck after driving through the crowd and then crashing.

An unexpected tragedy happened on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans and Las Vegas: a terrorist attack in both cities. What started as a good day in both cities turned into a crisis that cost many lives. 

Many people were in Las Vegas and New Orleans to enjoy their New Year’s Eve, but terrorist attacks occurred in both cities. People did not know what to do, but the situations were figured out and are trying to speculate why these attacks happened.

“I think there’s a combination of reasons, perhaps they feel that the government is not responsive to their needs or the government is doing something that they think is objectionable and they don’t feel like normal political avenues of action make a difference and so sometimes people just push over the edge and commit acts of violence,” history teacher Kym Grillot said.

There are things that need to be released and not released. If something that is not good is released then it could cause problems about the investigation. When it comes to ongoing investigations, it is crucial to maintain a balance between transparency and discretion. 

“You need to investigate and you need to be careful with the information that you release. You know how fake news travels fast online so the government has to investigate but they have to be very careful about doing it and very careful about what they tell the media about the investigation,” Grillot said.

There are tragedies that happen in the world that are not good but need to be addressed. The initial shock quickly gave way to a growing sense of anxiety as the media began to pick up the story. What had started as an ordinary day quickly turned into one filled with disbelief as reports surfaced about a terrorist attack.

“Obviously it was troubling to hear that. You never want to hear of a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. It was important for people to know about it so the media has the right to cover it.” Grillot said. 

There are problems that the government needs to take care of. Taking care of veterans needs to be a priority because it causes problems if they are not helped. The lack of treatment options and long wait times surrounding mental health often leave those who served that need support without resources that they deserve. 

“From what I had heard but I think a lot of that is really tied back to veterans issues and things like PTSD not getting addressed,” Isaiah Cook said.

These things can not be completely stopped from happening but when they do happen there are ways to stop so many deaths from happening. There needs to be safety and security when you are in a vulnerable spot. 

“I don’t know if they can control it. I don’t think the government can stop bad things from happening because we are a huge country. We have 3 million people here and so I think it’s a really hard thing to prevent from happening. And so I just think the government needs to maintain safety and security,” said Grillot.