News & Events

VA Beach Municipal Building Shooting

Description:

We arrived to begin meeting with the co-workers of those who had been killed or wounded during the mass shooting. All workers had been given a week off and some were beginning to come back to work. Many were at work for the first time the day we arrived. Many had been assigned to new locations and were having to adjust to new surroundings and the loss of co-workers. After a brief orientation by Bob Pihlcrantz, we were divided into groups of one or two therapist/pastors and a dog team.

The dogs proved to be a great ice breaker and almost everyone began to talk about their own story of the day the shooting occurred, their sense of a loss of safety, fear of being in the workplace, lack of security, and inability to control random actions.

J Wagner and Uno, L Morissette and Pepper