Crisis group coming to Carson City to help with post-shooting emotions

Even 10 years later, Nevada City, Calif., knows how Carson City feels.

In 2001, an insane man walked into the Nevada County, Calif., Behavioral Health Department and shot and killed a 19-year-old receptionist and a 68-year-old woman and critically injured a 49-year-old county worker. Before eventually barricading himself in his home and surrendering, he made his way to a Lyons Restaurant and fatally shot the 24-year-old assistant manager and chased down a cook outside, critically wounding him.

Last week's IHOP shootings in Carson City brought to the surface decades-old memories not quite buried for former Nevada County human resources director Angie Ureta of Grass Valley. So Ureta reached out to Carson City's human resources director, Melanie Bruketta.

"It's just something that nobody should have to go through," Ureta said. "I grew up in the Reno-Sparks area, and something like that just impacts all of us."

Having been through it, Ureta discovered how fractured her community was in light of the 2001 shooting.

"It was devastating, absolutely devastating to the community," she said.

So she searched for and found help from the National Organization for Victim Assistance, a crisis outreach organization for which tragedy is the norm.

"They helped us bring the community together and get information out to people should they need to seek help. This way we could begin some kind of a healing process," she said.

Bruketta said she was looking for something similar when Ureta's call came in.

On Saturday, NOVA will be in Carson City to meet with the public at an open forum at the Carson City Community Center.

According to Bruketta, seven trained facilitators with NOVA will be on hand to guide discussions among Carson City residents affected by the IHOP shooting. The media is not invited.

"This meeting is for people who have strongly been affected by the incident. It will also provide opportunities for the community at large to have a private context to discuss their experiences in the aftermath of the shooting as well as how they are coping," she said. "We want people to be able to speak freely without media being there."

The meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. and is expected to last from 60 to 90 minutes.