The auditorium lights dimmed at Western Albemarle High School last Tuesday night as about a hundred people settled into their seats. They were there to hear a woman whose life was ripped apart earlier this year in a shooting who has found purpose from her pain.
“I’m Megan Martin,” began the woman dressed in black. “I’m the founder of the Peter L. Martin Legacy Foundation.”
Martin recounted the morning of Feb. 17, when her husband — her “everything,” as she called him — left their Crozet home to buy an air filter and never came back.
“He put in a load of laundry,” she said. “So even though he was getting over the flu,” she said as she paused for composure, “he hopped out of bed and tried to help me in any way that he could.”
It was in the parking lot of a Harris Teeter grocery store, barely 2 miles from where she was speaking, that her husband, a 43-year-old finance professional, was shot dead by a troubled man firing a semi-automatic rifle at strangers. Another victim, retired nurse Diane Spangler, was also killed before an off-duty officer ended the rampage, fatally shooting the gunman.
For the widow and mother of two young girls, the grief may be immeasurable. But from her grief, she said she created the foundation to prevent gun violence and promote mental wellness through education, policy advocacy and community activation.
“I don’t want to take away your guns,” Martin told the audience. “What I do want to do, however, is work together to prevent gun violence as a result of mental health crises.”
With a commitment to both gun safety and gun rights, she bridged what so often divides Americans on the matter of firearms, and she emphasized that her focus was Central Virginia.
“That means that we also need to respect local culture, and I get that that includes our hunting culture,” she said. “That includes the right to bear arms.”
One priority, she said, is ensuring that families and front-line professionals understand how to use an extreme risk protection order, under Virginia’s so-called red flag law — the legal tool that might have temporarily confiscated the gunman’s firearms had it been invoked. As previously reported, the shooter — Justin Makai Barbour, a 28-year-old Western Albemarle graduate with a psychology degree from James Madison University — had reportedly harassed women and made delusional accusations. Police were called twice to investigate Barbour, but his guns were not taken, nor was he deemed committable.
“This was a man in crisis,” said Martin. “His family loved him. He went to a good college. He also worked in mental health. These were drastic behavioral changes for him.”
She said she wanted to help bystanders recognize a mental health crisis.
“The bottom line is please, please help — help ensure that history isn’t repeated,” she said. “My family truly does love this community, and we love you too much to see anybody else go through what we did.”
The foundation’s first priorities, she said, are to educate the public on warning signs — aggression, isolation, stalking, delusions — and to advocate for legislation allowing families and health care professionals, not just police, to seek emergency risk orders when someone might pose a danger.
On stage beside her sat University of Virginia emeritus law professor Richard Bonnie, an architect of Virginia’s red flag law. Bonnie said the law has a “design flaw” because it doesn’t currently allow family members or mental health professionals to initiate red flag orders.
“The General Assembly has to fix that,” said Bonnie, rejecting any notion that such a process would be abused since it seems not to be abused for other protective orders.
In the audience, a woman named Carrie Chiarella listened intently with her husband Louis.
“It’s sad that we have to have these conversations,” she told The Daily Progress afterward, “but it’s good that we do.”
Also in attendance were both the Charlottesville and the Albemarle County chiefs of police, the latter calling this “an important night” as he walked back to his car.
“I was really proud of Megan Martin,” Albemarle County Police Chief Sean Reeves told The Daily Progress. “She told her story to the community from her perspective and extended that invitation for us to be part of the solution.”
Reeves said that in the wake of the shooting, his department has revisited how officers are trained.
“I’ve had the opportunity after the tragedy to speak with with Megan and Megan’s family to really discuss how this happened and the events that unfolded, and more importantly how the Albemarle County Police Department responded to the incident and could have, quite frankly, done better in assessing, not just having policy on emergency risk orders and substantial risk orders, but enhancing that training beyond just policy.”
Reeves noted that the department recently brought in one of the evening’s speakers, Lori Haas from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, to teach his officers how to recognize and respond to individuals in crisis.
“That training has already been beneficial,” said Reeves.
While on stage Martin sat beside seven panelists including researchers, law enforcement officers and advocates. But the heart of the evening was one woman’s push for vigilance.
“Your actions matter,” she told the crowd. “You can save a life.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com