Kaitlin Washburn and Lisa Gutierrez, The Kansas City Star
Kindall Johnson woke up early that October Saturday to get to his fraternity’s Homecoming Day tailgate.
On the way out the door of his parents’ house, he shouted a goodbye to his mother, Kathy Davis: “Love ya, Ma!”
Davis watched her 22-year-old son, the youngest of her three boys, jog out to his car and leave, like he did any other day.
He would never return.
Johnson, not even a year out of the Marine Corps, a student struggling to readjust to civilian life, went to the tailgate but skipped the football game at Missouri State University in Springfield. Instead, he drove to the parking lot of a police station and shot himself twice in the chest.
“I don’t think that the gun had anything to do with it,” Davis said.
Yet, research shows that easy access to a firearm can be deadly.
“There’s a lot of factors leading to this epidemic, but the most important one is guns,” said Chris Marvin, who served for seven years as a U.S. Army officer and Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. He currently sits on the Everytown Veterans Advisory Council.
“It’s so clear that the gun is a leading reason why we have a suicide crisis.”
When people think about suicide among veterans, Marvin said, they tend to blame it on the trauma of combat. But many veterans, like Johnson, never saw any fighting.
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Central Ohio business shares how PPP loans kept their employees around
Ildefanso Bravo was let go from his job last year. When the business was able to get a PPP loan, he came back. Author: Richard Solomon (WBNS) Updated: 10:25 PM EST March 10, 2021
Hundreds of billions of dollars has been given to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP loan.
It’s helped many here in Ohio stay afloat and helped some get back to work.
One man has felt the hardships of this pandemic firsthand.
Ildefanso Bravo works at Dos Hermanos, a Mexican restaurant in central Ohio.
If you ask him now, he’d tell you his job is one of the most important things to him.
Hanover Park trustee candidates voice their priorities Top row from left, Yasmeen Bankole, Tonya Frosheiser and Syed Hussaini and, bottom row from left, Bob Prigge and Sharmin Shahjahan are running for 4-year trustee seats in Hanover Park.
Updated 2/19/2021 8:18 PM
The five candidates seeking the three available 4-year trustee seats on the Hanover Park village board shared their top priorities for the job during a recent Zoom interview with the Daily Herald.
Running in the April 6 election are incumbents Bob Prigge and Sharmin Shahjahan, both seeking their second terms, as well as Yasmeen Bankole, Tonya Frosheiser and Syed Hussaini.
Frosheiser, Hussaini and Prigge are running on a slate with three uncontested candidates incumbent Liza Gutierrez seeking reelection to a 2-year term, newcomer Kristy Merrill for village clerk, and incumbent Rodney Craig seeking reelection as village president.