You no doubt heard about the mass shooting Wednesday in the Route 66 town of San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead and 17 injured.
The suspected shooters, an apparent husband-and-wife team, were slain during a confrontation with police later Wednesday. Initial reports of a third assailant never were confirmed.
The best coverage I’ve seen was through the Los Angeles Times and the San Bernardino County Sun. The locations of the shootings and the searches by police were not near the Route 66 corridor, as far as I could find.
This whole situation is deeply sad for obvious reasons. But it’s also distressing for San Bernardino, which has suffered through a catastrophic collapse of its economy, municipal bankruptcy and the subsequent loss of its popular Route 66 Rendezvous.
And San Bernardino now being known as the site of one of the worst mass murders in U.S. history has to be a kick in the teeth. Another Route 66 town — Edmond, Oklahoma — can relate because of its post office massacre in 1986 that left 15 people dead. But that city is thriving, and memories of that mass shooting have faded with time.