Thoughts from a survivor - and gun control advocate - of Art All Night shooting

The irony of the night was not lost on Fran Carroll. Having spent four hours asking Art All Night attendees to “imagine a world without gun violence,” Carroll — a volunteer for Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense — no longer can. Carroll was present early Sunday morning when gunmen started shooting at the state’s largest arts festival.

"I have now experienced firsthand the terror of an active shooting situation," said Carroll, in between bouts of tears. "Of running with a stampede of people, pushing and shoving. Of taking shelter behind a thin wood wall that I knew wouldn’t stop a bullet, wondering where else I could hide, should we crouch behind that stack of tables? Not knowing if it was safe to run outside with most of the crowd because we had no idea where the gunman – gunmen? – was."

Prior to 2:45 a.m. and her shift which started at 11 p.m., Carroll, who lives in Hamilton, spent several hours at the arts festival with a fellow Moms Demand Action volunteer admiring the art festival’s offerings.

"It was awesome, it was friendly. I felt safe," Carroll said.

READ:Art All Night in Trenton ends in mass shooting, leaving 1 dead, 22 injured on Father's Day

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Then, she took her turn at the table. At the end of her shift, just minutes before shots were fired, Carroll and her friend Lorraine Sexton started to make their way through the long hall to the far exit on the opposite where they had parked. They walked slow to view more of the artwork — and her friend uses a cane. Midway, they heard a commotion, turned and saw people running towards them.

"We were taking our time," Carroll said. "It couldn’t have been 10-15 minutes. I didn’t hear anything — any shots. We weren’t aware of the vibe changing. The crowd had thinned out. There was not a crowd in front of our table, but it was late. Midway through the building, I heard a commotion and I just turned and saw this crowd running toward us. They are running and coming right for us. I stopped for a few second. You are just perplexed. An alarm bell does go up, but I still hadn’t heard anything. We must have stood there for a second or two too long and then we heard a barrage of shots. I didn’t know where they were. We weren’t that far. I grabbed Lorraine and we ran as fast as she could run."

Gunmen had opened fire in front of the Moms Demand Action table, though the table’s message was not the target.

"Can you say ironic," said Carroll, vacillating between tears and thinly disguised anger. "That was not lost on me as I was running. I’m having a hard time right now imagining a world without gun violence. We need to change. Seriously, it was just a matter of time, wasn’t it? At this rate, it is just a matter of time until gun violence touches us all."

While Carroll and Sexton could not run as fast as others around them, they eventually made their way through a sea of people and debris to get to the other end of the building.

"People were running right past us," Carroll said. "I was worried about getting stampeded, but it wasn’t too bad. We only got pushed a few times. For the most part, people were not pushing us down. I kept worrying Lorraine was going to fall, but she did great — she booked. There was a red chair. There was artwork that had fallen off pedestals. I can still clearly see one right in her path…The crowd must have ran and ran and kept running out the door. There was only a few of us left and we were on the side, not quite at the door yet, crouched over. The gunfire stopped at one point but we were at this wall – this thin, plywood wall that had artwork on it. We followed some people behind it. It was cover. We stopped and hid there for a while not knowing what to do. We had no idea what was happening at the other end."

Carroll knew there were police already at the venue, which was reassuring. But, they were scared.

"We didn’t know if it was a gunman or gunmen. We didn’t know which direction they were going to run. They could have run through the building," Carroll said. "I just kept thinking, 'This wall is not going to stop a bullet. It’s just a sheet of plywood. This isn’t really cover.' The thoughts that go through your mind tell you this just can’t be happening, but at the same time you are thinking 'Of course, this is happening. This is what happens.' And of course, the thought runs through my mind that we were just talking about this – imagine a world without gun violence.... How could this be happening?”

Carroll and Sexton were afraid to run out — what was outside was unknown. Sexton called her adult son.

"I’m just thinking that I’m not ready to do that," said Carroll, her voice breaking. "I’m not ready to make the 'I Love You Goodbye' call. I couldn’t make that call."

They waited for a police officer to escort them out of the building. Another officer took them to Carroll’s car. They drove another woman —  "Elizabeth from Bordentown" — who was with their "hiding" group to her car in a remote parking lot blocks away.

"We went home," Carroll said. "The GPS — the way it was taking us — kept taking us back to the where we saw flashing lights. We saw somebody receiving treatment on the side of the road. We wanted to get out of there. Somebody could pull out a gun at any time." 

Having joined in February — just days before the Parkland, Florida shooting — Carroll is new to Moms Demand Action. But, the mom of three teens is not new to the issue of gun violence. She has been a proponent of stricter gun control for many years.

"It has pissed me off quite frankly that we as a country, as a whole, don’t seem to be willing to face this issue head-on, don’t seem to be able to do anything about it," Carroll said. "Other countries have. It kills me that people say, 'Oh, there’s nothing we can do,' or 'The gun culture is so pervasive and we have the Second Amendment.' There are things that can be done. Look at Australia — that is the model. They had this horrible mass shooting and they collectively decided that this is not who we want to be and they we are better than this. And here, nobody wants to do anything — and it’s because of the money. Because of the NRA and their lobbying. In my opinion, they are not about the second amendment and gun rights. They are lobbyists for gun manufacturers who are making lots of money selling these weapons and the ammunition. They have bought and sold Congress. It’s maddening to me that not enough people, including our elected officials, won’t stand up and say, 'No, enough.' It’s an uphill battle for sure, but we have got to do something. We need an army of people — not with guns —but with voices and their pens and their vote."

Politically active, Carroll was recently named Legislative and Elections Co-Lead for the NJ chapter of the organization.

"I was very impressed with them (Moms Demand Action) in terms that they actually go out and talk to elected officials," she said. "That was a main area of focus for me. They get stuff done and I want to be a part of that. I kind of jumped in with both feet."

During her shift at Art All Night, Carroll was encouraging attendees to participate in an interactive mural depicting a world without gun violence. Asked to write down their thoughts on the topic, many had no difficulty. Others seemed to struggle. Carroll took notice of that.

"I literally spent three and a half hours asking countless people to help us with our interactive art display," she said. "People were friendly, people were receptive. It struck me then how many people had to stop and had trouble with the question — had trouble imagining. Some of them said 'I can’t.' And I would tell them 'Try. It’s a good thing to imagine. It’s a good thing to think about.' But, I guess now I understand. I can’t imagine that now. It’s more than a little hard right now."

"I guess they couldn’t imagine it either – the people who started this," Carroll added. "It’s hard. People had trouble. It was sad how many people had trouble. Imagine that."

In tears, Carroll asked "Wasn’t this almost an inevitability?"

"Just a matter of time. At the rate we are going, it’s just a matter of time before you are personally affected by it,” she said. "I also think of that after every school shooting. You know the number of dead, but do you know how many are affected? The children hiding in a closet. Their parents. Hundreds. Thousands. They will never be the same. I don’t think we talk about that enough."

It breaks her heart to know that the post-Columbine children — including her own 14-year-old twin daughters and 13-year-old son — have never known a world free of lockdown drills — free of the gunman scenarios that have become all too prevalent. School shooting were always something Carroll worried about — and still does, with even more frequency.

"You send your kids out into the world and it’s one thing when they are out in the world, but when they are in their own school — where they are supposed to be safe and where they have to go," Carroll said. "There was one moment when we were hiding behind that wall when I thought 'This is what the kids do.' When my kids have drills – this is all they have known. Why have we decided as a country that this is OK? Who is Ok with that? It shouldn’t have to be that way."

Having offered resources for both advocacy and counseling, the women present at Art All Night are now taking their own advice and assistance. Most participated in a group call Sunday night with a counselor and talked about their experience. Two of the women on the next shift had nursing backgrounds and along with Art All Night Curator Bruce Toth offered assistance to the wounded.  

“We were feeling all the feels,” Carroll said. “We decided we would talk and check in with each other as a group at least once a week – at least for a little while. I had been lucky before. I had not been personally touched or had anyone close to me personally touched by gun violence. I consider myself very lucky.”

Now, the art project imagining a world without gun violence remains unfinished. Just like their mission, said Carroll, who was present at three gun bill hearings last week as well as the day Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill into law.

Carroll also realized that Sunday she was asking visitors to the Moms Demand Action booth to add their name to the organization’s email list. Many did. And many checked off the little box denoting them to be a "survivor."

Now Carroll can too.

"I can check that box off now," she said in a small, quavering voice. "Strange."

Staff Writer Cheryl Makin: 732-565-7256; cmakin@gannettnj.com