Greetings to everyone who was horrified by images of U.S. Border Control agents on horseback herding Haitian migrants at the Texas border and used their anger to read up on the United States’ history of racist immigration policy.

MLK50’s namesake died fighting for workers – specifically underpaid Memphis sanitation workers – so with every local breaking news alert, I instinctively ask myself: Does this affect workers?

That question informs our reporting on the nation’s second most recent mass shooting (as of the time I’m writing this, but this is America so there could be another shooting before this is published and several more before you read this).

Media sets up outside the Collierville Kroger grocery store on Thursday afternoon following a shooting by a former contractor. Fifteen people were shot, both workers and customers, and one Kroger employee, Olivia King, died. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50

At least eight employees were among the injured after Thursday’s shooting at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville, a suburban town outside Memphis. Police say a former contractor opened fire, sending dozens of shoppers and workers scrambling for cover. One shopper was killed, authorities said, and the suspected gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Reporter Hannah Grabenstein talked to experts – and a former retail worker (now state representative) who still deals with the trauma of a workplace shooting – about the trauma these essential employees have faced during the pandemic and the help they’ll need to recover from this tragic event