EDITORIAL: Uniting in the face of evil

01 Jul 2026, 00:27 · The Fresno Bee

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Every Saturday, we run an editorial in this space called "Hits and Misses," a look at the highlights and lowlights of the week's news.

There's no point this week. There is one, and only one, story that has dominated the public's attention - while also shattering our community's senses of humanity and safety.

This was the week "It could never happen here" hit Chico, and hit it hard.

When a gunman walked into the Chico library late Monday afternoon and opened fire - killing two men and sending a young girl to the hospital - it forever impacted the lives of the families, friends and loved ones of the victims, not to mention the innocent acquaintances of the shooter.

It also cut an undeniable scar into the psyche of our city - a town no stranger to disaster, but for the most part, with a history free of the kind of pointless mass killings that have plagued so much of our nation the past few decades.

According to Chico police, the suspect - 18-year-old Bradley Scott Sayer, who graduated from Chico High School earlier this month - went to the library with a shotgun because he wanted to carry out a Columbine-style massacre, like the 1999 school shooting that left 14 people dead in Colorado.

Let's repeat that line. He wanted to carry out a Columbine-style massacre.

If that doesn't scream "Our country is in dire need of additional mental health resources and we must keep guns out of reach of sick individuals while making sure evil killers never get a second chance and are locked up for life," we're not sure what else ever could.

The act itself was barbaric beyond belief. Among the victims was Jacob "Cody" Hull, 46, of Chico; he was visiting the library with his young niece, and died while trying to stop the killer from slaughtering other innocent people. Also killed was Robert Johnson, 74, a longtime Orland resident who was simply there to enjoy his lifelong love of books.

And that's among the most shocking parts of this sick story, isn't it? It happened at a library. A library. Isn't any place free from such horrors anymore?

A lot has changed in our society in the past few decades; those of us who remember the days when every country kid parked an unlocked pickup truck at high school with rifles in the gun rack know "access to guns" isn't the whole story. Pure evil, mental illness, hate and an ever-growing lack of respect for life itself are also among the many things that are literally killing us.

We don't pretend to have all the answers, but if there's one thing we've learned repeatedly about Chico the past several years, it's this: Disasters tend to show the true colors of our people, and for the most part, that's a fantastic thing.

As we've seen, we have a community united in its horror of this event. The effort to raise money, and provide resources for families of the victims, has been off the charts. Chicoans have had a lot of practice at helping those who need it the most; please support these efforts to support the victims. It's what Chico does.

(One fantastic example: the North Valley Community Foundation has set up an administrative-fee-free link: nvcf.org/chico-library-shooting-support-funds)

That's the best of humanity. And for an example of the flip side? As always, just look at social media, where the hate never stops. First responders were still racing to the scene when some clueless keyboard warriors began casting theories about who the shooter was, and what his political beliefs were, and why it happened, and what his gender and ethnicity probably were, and who in addition to him was to blame (yes, some people immediately assumed the shooter must have been a homeless man); in short, just a nearly never-ending supply of pointless and destructive garbage. We were glad to see "a lot of misinformation" be among the first things addressed by Chico Police Chief Billy Aldridge in his touching and wholly appropriate remarks that day.

If there's one thing we should be able to learn from such crimes against humanity, it's this: Hate never leads anyone in a good direction.

So let's all commit to being good to one another and doing everything we can to reach enough common ground to stop this insanity from ever happening again. The memory of the victims of this most recent tragedy deserves nothing less.