What I wish I knew then: Lessons from covering traumatic stories of gun violence in Sacramento

Tears flooded Tasha Cousins’ eyes when she told me how she wanted her son, Kejion Starkes, to be remembered.

Starkes, 26, was driving from an ex-girlfriend’s house when someone fired a gunshot into his car, causing him to crash into the fence of a nearby school. 

Sitting in her kitchen, just two months after her son was shot and killed, she was still deeply grieving the loss of her son. She apologized for the house “being a mess” even though her apartment was tidy.

I, a 40-year-old white man, sat and listened to a 44-year-old Black mother while she was going through the most traumatic and painful experience of her life. 

We talked about her son for about an hour, the new girlfriend he had, Tasha’s last interaction with her son, and what he had come through in his life to become the man he was.

She thanked me for being patient with her when she thought she was rambling — she wasn’t — and for not interrupting her, giving her the opportunity to simply talk to someone.

When setting out to report on how Black people make up a disproportionate percentage of gun violence victims in Sacramento, I had never spoken to anyone who had lost their children from gun violence. I also underestimated the emotional toll it would have on me.

Learning to use sensitivity and trauma-informed approaches with my subjects became paramount. 

I spoke to Brittani Frierson the day after her 10-year-old son KJ was killed by another 10-year-old.

As journalists, we need to be particularly sensitive with parents mourning the loss of a child. We need to try to not just get what information we need for the story, but to also have compassion and be comforting. Think if your mother was being interviewed after you were shot and killed, and how you would want her to be treated.

This kind of sensitivity is just as important when asking a parent to retell the story of losing their child years later.

It was almost six years ago that Paula Anderson was getting her young children ready for bed, looking at pictures with her 3-year-old daughter Azalya, who was killed in her home by a stray bullet that whizzed by Paula and struck Azalya in the back of the head.

Paula had to rush her little girl to the hospital, bleeding all over her in the backseat of the car. It’s a memory no parent wants to recall.

Years later at the trial, one of three men took a plea deal for manslaughter because there were no witnesses that wanted to testify against known gang members. This was another retraumatizing memory.

Anderson went homeless after her daughter was killed, brought down by a combination of depression which impacted her ability to work and her inability to live peacefully in the same house where her daughter was shot.

She didn’t have to tell me all of that, but after several conversations, and reassuring her she only had to tell me what she was comfortable with, and that I would take more care in telling her story than previous journalists, she opened up.

One tip from Everytown for Gun Safety that I found helpful is that journalists should seek to actively resist retraumatizing people who have been personally affected by gun violence. For some people, viewing and hearing graphic depictions of gun violence may cause harm through retraumatization. Exposure to graphic images and depictions may activate a posttraumatic stress response, including negative and distressing thoughts, emotions, and behaviors for those who have a lived experience of gun violence.

This toolkit from Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting (PCGVR) and the FrameWorks Institute also has helpful suggestions, such as the importance of humanizing victims, offering solutions relevant to the specific shooting, explaining what drives gun violence and using data in context to talk about trends or the effects of policy choices.

I followed the suggestions from the toolkit to the best of my ability. While I may have employed the proper level of sensitivity in my reporting, I likely fell short of being sensitive to my mental health.

In my years of reporting, I never acknowledged the toll it took on my mental health until I spoke to parents who had lost their children to gun violence.

Journalists often cover traumatic situations — mother whose 10-year-old son is shot and killed by another 10-year-old boy, or a mother who saw her 3-year-old girl struck and killed by a bullet that came in through the living room window — without much thought of how much trauma they can bear witness to themselves.

When I began to investigate why Black people in Sacramento made up over 50% of gun violence victims from 2019 through 2023, I was determined to find out why and was highly motivated to do so.

Several months into my USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Impact Fund project, I had become overwhelmed by what I was hearing from families of victims.

So much so I had to take a week’s vacation to reenergize myself and unload the burden of listening to the many stories of young Black people being shot and killed. I am also looking into talking to a mental health professional for good measure. I am finding that I have been experiencing higher levels of anxiety after reporting so extensively on gun violence in Sacramento.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has some great tips that I wish I had had while reporting on gun violence:

• Try not to read or listen to emotionally difficult content repeatedly by taking clear notes and time-stamping your recordings.
• “Limit your exposure to graphic imagery. … Eliminate needless, repeated exposure by meticulously organizing your files; take frequent screen breaks; don’t pass graphic imagery to colleagues without warning them of the content.”
• Take time away from work. “Decompress through exercise, walking, or socializing. Try not to engage with graphic or disturbing content outside of work. Instead, engage in enjoyable activities that help take your mind elsewhere. Take all opportunities for paid time off.”

The guidelines also urge reporters to “develop supportive relationships with your colleagues.”

I think I did a few of those things but certainly not all. I took time off and would take breaks from my work. My colleagues at The OBSERVER have been very attentive to my mental health and were very conscious to not overloading me with other traumatic assignments while covering this project.

When covering the difficult, heartbreaking stories of gun violence, remember to not only be sensitive with your subjects but also yourself.