Grieving communities have need to understand

"The question of why is out there, in terms of bringing closure. Why this house, why this party, why Saturday ... why not three weeks ago?"

— Steve Schwartz, victim's uncle

Why did Kyle Huff kill six innocent people, including 22-year-old Justin "Sushi" Schwartz, before killing himself last weekend in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood? Perhaps we will never know.

Not knowing can add an extra dimension of grief to such a tragedy, according to a story in The Seattle Times Friday. Reporter Jonathan Martin quoted one expert who said the need to understand why is so strong that it can consume grieving families.

The story quoted Elise Crawford, whose fiancé, Mark McLaughlin, was shot while he was driving a Metro bus. The bus went off the Aurora Bridge in Fremont, killing McLaughlin and a passenger. The shooter then killed himself.

That was almost eight years ago, yet Crawford said McLaughlin's death is still so painful she hasn't gone near Fremont since. And she doesn't know why it happened.

"We'll never know why. That was always my question. I still wonder," Crawford told reporter Martin.

Steve Schwartz said he has "more questions than anger at this point." Will he still have those questions years from now?

Martin's story was one of many last week that speak to a concern expressed by one reader who wrote that he was "deeply disturbed by local coverage of the tragedy on Capitol Hill." Here's more of what he wrote:

"It disgusts me that you would pander to the masses' pornographic infatuation with death and destruction. News, to me, should be pragmatically informative, it should not be something that is prying for no reason. Why is it that we need to know about this tragedy other than being shocked and horrified at the lengths of Man's madness? Mr. Huff is dead and thus he is not rampaging around Seattle so, why?"

I would argue that the need to understand is so strong that it can hurt grieving communities, just as surely as it consumes grieving families.

Though we can't yet explain Kyle Huff's motives, we can report what we are able to learn about his life. Times reporters Hal Bernton and Mike Carter today provide the fullest picture to date of Huff.

Bernton went to Huff's hometown of Whitefish, Mont., last Sunday. Although he has been unable to talk with Huff's mother or twin brother, he said other people there have been surprisingly responsive.

"It's a wonderful town. They don't want to be in the news this way, but they understand that everyone in Seattle is struggling to make some sense of this tragedy," he said.

"We are painfully aware of the things we don't know," Bernton said. In the end, "we may have to bow to the unknowable."

Other coverage and insights

Kyle Huff and his victims, including two girls who were 14 and 15 years old, had attended a rave before the shootings. There is no suggestion that the rave culture is a factor in Huff's actions, but the tragedy has heightened community interest in the underground music scene.

The Times today is able to provide a fascinating perspective, thanks to a group of students who work on the Garfield High School newspaper and quarterly magazine. Last fall they attended a rave to write a magazine article about the rave scene, its history, drugs, vocabulary and symbols. What we publish today is an abridged version of their story.

Doug Kim, Times arts and entertainment editor, read the original piece and concluded, "It was really good. I thought they had done some interesting reporting. It was obvious they had done their work."

Kim was impressed that the article struck a good balance between describing the scene and providing background and context. "They were able to see it in a way that we could not." Our reporters and photographers, with notebooks and cameras, would stand out as "people who obviously don't belong in that scene."

"We would get a different reaction, especially after the shootings. They got an open reaction," he said.

The students attended a morning news meeting at The Times last week, then met with editors to discuss the story and working together in the future. Kim said they talked about the methods they used to get and write the story and what's on their minds now.

Kim said the students are going to do more reporting for The Times. "We asked them to go out and talk with more kids to see how the shooting affected them and to tell it from their perspective. They are going to get a different viewpoint than we could.

"They care a lot about what they're doing," he added. "They want to get their perspective out."

We are hopeful the story today and future reports will spur discussions between young people and their parents. Parents might also read a story in Saturday's Northwest Life/Families section on protecting young teens and how to balance freedom and control.

That story and all previous coverage of the shooting are archived on seattletimes.com.

Inside The Times appears in the Sunday Seattle Times. If you have a comment on news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, call 206-464-3310 or send e-mail to seattletimes.com">mfancher@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists