Kevin Cavell’s phone started going off while he was getting his credentials for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
As Roll Call reports, texts from his friends back home told the retired police officer of a shooting in his hometown of Baton Rouge.
“The first thought was, ‘Unreal. This is not really happening,’” Cavell says.
And when he realized the reports were true, he started to process the information.
“Is this a terrorist group? Is this a lone wolf? What has actually happened here?”
Cavell retired in 2004 after working as a Baton Rouge police officer for 25 years. He is one of the nearly 90 delegates from Louisiana in Cleveland for what is usually an exciting and even happy occasion—the culmination of a lengthy primary and the start of the general election.
Some in the Louisiana delegation were just arriving in Cleveland and others were just leaving home when they heard the news from the state’s capital.
Just before 9 a.m. Sunday, a lone gunman ambushed police officers, killing three.
Cavell still attended Sunday’s opening event at the convention. But when he returned to the silence of his hotel room, he reflected on the tragedy that claimed the lives of two Baton Rouge officers—men who wore the same uniform he once did—and a sheriff’s deputy.
“It hits you,” he said as he spooned food onto his plate at the delegation’s breakfast Monday morning, his voice trailing off.
Glenda Pollard’s voice broke as she recalled getting a call from her sister to inform her about the shooting, just as she and her husband were packing up their car to head to the airport. Pollard and her husband are Trump supporters and live a mile from where the shooting happened.
“It’s tragic,” she says, “This has got to end.”
Roll Call has the full story.
