At Monday's candlelight vigil along Cabrillo Boulevard, I walked the line of people standing shoulder to shoulder with candles and signs, covering the vigil for the Santa Barbara Independent . The line stretched for about two blocks in each direction from the Dolphin Fountain at Stearns Wharf. I walked it back and forth. I talked to families, to seniors, to young couples. I spoke with Ellen DeGeneres, who stood quietly holding a candle on her birthday because, as she told me, “This matters.”
People thanked me — first for being young and showing up. Then, when they learned I was a reporter, for being there at all.
A few hours earlier, I had been sitting in the newsroom watching the carnage of America. Video footage of Alex Pretti being shot and killed in Minneapolis, article after article about Pretti and Renee Nicole Good. I saw federal officials go on television and offer accounts that were flatly contradicted by video evidence — statements so detached from reality they felt ripped from 1984. I kept wanting to say it out loud: This is false. This is a lie.