Carrie Rivers didn’t want answers. She wanted retribution.
The 48-year-old Indianapolis mother is now facing felony charges after allegedly showing up to Valley Mills Elementary with a loaded gun on her hip and a chip on her shoulder. According to police, she was furious over what she believed was an assignment about same-sex relationships. Her daughter, a sixth grader, had already been excused from the assignment. The teacher explained it was a lesson on flags, state, national, and yes, the rainbow one in the classroom that read “Be Kind.”
But Rivers wasn’t satisfied. She pulled her daughter out of school on April 9, then showed up anyway, gun holstered at her waist.
She didn’t brandish the firearm, but that doesn’t make it safe. You don’t have to pull a trigger for a weapon to be a threat. Just introducing a gun into a situation like that is enough to turn a tense moment into a deadly one.
When police removed the firearm, Rivers reportedly thought they were there to deal with the teacher, not her. However, she made her intent painfully clear soon after. In typical modern Christian America fashion, the teacher received a venomous message, Rivers is said to have accused the teacher of being a predator, threatened divine and physical punishment, and referenced the teacher’s wife, a police officer, calling her “your only hope.” Rivers followed up with a Facebook friend request and another message dripping with hate that children should never be told it’s okay to be in a same-sex relationship.
How did Rivers know about the teacher’s wife? A family photo on the teacher’s desk. That’s what set this woman off. A rainbow flag and a photo of two moms with their kids. That’s all it took.
Rivers has been charged with possession of a firearm on school property and harassment. She’ll have her day in court, but don’t mistake this for an isolated outburst. It’s the product of a culture where paranoia is baptized as faith and rage is mistaken for righteousness.
This is not how Christianity works. Or at least, not the kind we’re supposed to admire. The turn-the-other-cheek kind. The love-thy-neighbor kind. The kind that doesn’t involve threats of hellfire and actual guns pointed loosely at teachers trying to do their jobs.
And that gun didn’t need to be waved to turn a school into a crime scene. It was enough that she brought it. Enough that she thought she had the moral high ground while literally armed to the teeth over a rainbow flag.
There’s nothing holy about that.
(Sources)
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 
Leave a comment