Five communities buried their dead this month.

On August 1, a gunman killed three people and wounded seven more outside a Twin Falls, Idaho, In-N-Out before dying himself. On August 5, a family in Prospect Hill, North Carolina, lost three of its own, including the shooter. On August 14, a Missaukee County, Michigan, spree left five dead and a 13-year-old girl wounded before the suspect was found dead. On August 15, five people were shot at Virginia State University — a historically Black institution — days before the fall semester began.

Omaha has not had a quiet week either. Shootings on Crown Point Avenue, West Center Road, in North Omaha’s Minne Lusa neighborhood, and in the Old Market have piled up since August 9, two of them critical within minutes of each other Sunday morning.

Civilian violence is not the whole story. Law enforcement violence — fatal and nonfatal shootings, taser use, restraint, vehicle strikes, chemical agents — belongs in the same accounting, and this summer it has turned deadly on the immigration-enforcement front as well. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Houston on July 7 while driving his work crew to a job site; federal agency and family accounts conflict, and no body camera captured it. Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13, also without body-camera footage, during a warrant operation that was not targeting him.

In Madison, Wisconsin, Corey Ruiz was shot and killed by police on July 22. The city’s Independent Police Monitor requested evidence, was denied, and issued a subpoena; the police department has turned over nothing. And Geraldo Lunas Campos died in ICE custody at the Camp East Montana facility in Texas; the medical examiner ruled it a homicide caused by asphyxia from neck and torso compression during a restraint.

Oakland has recorded three officer-involved shootings in 2026 alone — two fatal, one not — with transparency still incomplete.

The pattern behind the numbers is not new. Black Americans continue to face extraordinarily high rates of firearm homicide and are nearly three times as likely as White Americans to be killed by police. Some Native communities face comparable disparities. Immigrants now face a dramatically expanded federal enforcement apparatus.

Grieve. Protect. Oust. Reconstruct.

First: grieve. Every number was somebody’s child, parent, sibling, friend, neighbor. But keep
In mind and heart: death does not have the final word — Emperor–Healer Jesus was crucified, was raised, and already reigns.

Then: protect. Choose faith over fear, hope over fatalism, love over hatred. Say no to racism, dehumanization, vigilantism, and revenge — do not become the evil you oppose. Take credible threats seriously. Leave dangerous situations. Protect children and the vulnerable. Report imminent threats.

Then: act. Grief and protection are not the end of the work. Mishpāṭ — justice — is also a warning, not just a verdict, and it falls on structures as much as individuals. Reverse the curse. Get America out of peril. Protect the midterms. Stop the rig. Elect consequences. Impeach and convict Trump. Reconstruct USA for real.

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#ReverseTheCurse

#GetUSAoutOfPeril

#ProtectTheMidterms

#StopTheRig

#ElectConsequences

#FlipAllYouCan

#ImpeachConvictTrump

#ReconstructUSAforReal