I watched on, remembering my own experience with bumper cars when I was in Uruguay with my husband and our friends. How fun it was. How we bumped into Valentina and Emmanuel over and over while laughing our asses off.

I vaguely remember how loud the music was while I watched people laughing and bumping into each other. The Cure was playing, I think. Then suddenly we watched people behind us start to run and I guess out of instinct, the people on the ride also got out. My mom was still filming and I heard her yell out my brother's name. People kept yelling that there was an active shooter and then acting on instinct or impulse, I let myself be pulled into a ball with strangers next to the bumper car game to protect myself. I could still see my mother two people down and still yelling and my dad had a look of panic I'd never seen before.

My heartbeat quickened but my mind was foggy. This is it, I thought. It's our turn to experience something that was becoming all too common in this country. But my heart refused to believe that this would end in tragedy for a lot of people. I didn't want to think that this could happen here- in such a happy place where my younger brother and I both newly married would somehow suffer a loss.

Things did calm down for a few minutes. We heard it had been a false alarm and the people around us were starting to walk normally. Behind us, a few police officers were riding on horses. Big Tex had stopped talking and suddenly, we heard something over the loud speaker. Some people around us told us that we needed to evacuate because there were more shooters around. That turned out to be false. Regardless of the rumor, it was now 8 o'clock and dark. They turned off all the street lights surrounding the fair and it was hard for us to see. My sister-in-law grabbed my hand so we wouldn't get separated in the darkness. We walked fast and knew where the exit was but my heart started pounding again as big groups of people all ran towards the same direction as us. It felt like forever until we got out.

I don't know the why of it all, but the shooting took place at the food court. We had been there much earlier when the sun was still shining. We had gone searching for a few of the fair foods we'd been looking up on Instagram that we wanted to try. We stayed at the food court about two hours, maybe more... then left to explore. I didn't want to leave until I got another slice of pizza and wanted to go back, but we managed to find a food stand outside that had it so we never went back to that food court.

When you enter the vicinity of the fair, they check your bag and you go through a metal detector BUT apparently, they weren't always so thorough with their searches on previous days and were just waving people by. Also, if you have a permit to carry, you'd be allowed to go in with a gun. Why someone would even think of brining a gun to a place with children is fucking beyond me. I don't know if this person had a permit, if they sneaked it... who knows. The food court there is always insanely packed and I can only imagine how many people had to live through that ordeal. Three people were injured I heard, but none had life threatening injuries and the person responsible was found quickly.

Everyone evacuated about 8-ish when the fair ordinarily closes at 10 o'clock.
We walked towards the car with helicopters above our heads and cars trying to leave. We managed to slip away before traffic got bad in the area. I don't think I'll be going next year. It just left such a horrible taste in my mouth but I'm glad it didn't leave a fear in me, because I do want to go back eventually. The fair did open the next day at 2 o'clock. The city can't possibly lose out on big money even though In my opinion, opening the next day- even if delayed is in poor taste but... whatever. I guess money always wins over decency.

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