On August 26, American journalist Chris Hurst was told his partner and colleague Alison Parker had been killed by a gunman, live on television. The anchor for Virginia’s WDBJ station spoke publicly and candidly about the shooting in the aftermath.
I am comforted by everyone at @WDBJ7. We are a family. She worked with Adam every day. They were a team. I am heartbroken for his fiancee.
— Chris Hurst (@chrishurstwdbj) August 26, 2015
She was the most radiant woman I ever met. And for some reason she loved me back. She loved her family, her parents and her brother.
— Chris Hurst (@chrishurstwdbj) August 26, 2015
We were together almost nine months. It was the best nine months of our lives. We wanted to get married.We just celebrated her 24th birthday
— Chris Hurst (@chrishurstwdbj) August 26, 2015
“I want you to understand intimately what it was like for me to be a part of a story that shares too many similarities with what happened Wednesday in San Bernardino, where 14 innocent people are now dead, killed by a handful of America’s more than 300 million guns.
Alison was not the first, nor sadly the last, loved one to be killed in an act of demonstrative gun violence…
I was shocked, but not surprised. My next call was to my father and I remember feeling that I could believe it, it was possible, and that I was just absolutely heartbroken that I was the unlucky fellow who had been picked that day, that week in America to be collateral damage to a phenomenon of our own creation.”
“But for me, as the early days wore on, the realization my girlfriend was now a statistic, a case out of hundreds now part of one of the truly unnecessary narratives of this generation, put a tight burning sensation around my chest I feel each time I read reports of another person killed with a gun.”
You can read the full letter here.
Story: The Daily Beast.
Image: Gina Ferazzi / Getty.
