It’s been nearly four years since a mass shooting at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder left 10 people dead. Among the victims was Kevin Mahoney, whose daughter, Erika, is examining the tragedy and its aftermath through a new podcast called Senseless. She spoke with Maeve Conran about the podcast, her personal connection to the story, and the ongoing impact of the shooting on the entire community.
Erika Mahoney: When we look at the way the news covers these types of tragedies, there's a lot of coverage upfront and there's a lot of coverage around the trial, but you know, these stories do fade from the headlines eventually, you know. And for us, for the people who were affected, it never goes away. This is a life-changing event.
And I miss my dad every day. I think about my dad every day. I still struggle with PTSD, for example, you know, I never really go somewhere now where I don't think about things like, where's the exit? And it's tough. I mean, it just really changed my entire life. And the other thing that makes it such a lasting impact is that whenever there's another mass shooting in the U.S., it's just devastating because I see the families affected and I know what they're going to go through. And, it brings it all right back, and I think that is why I want to do this podcast.
This podcast is so much about what happens after tragedy: those days, months, and years, where it's still really, really hard. And I think one thing I've learned throughout this podcast is this whole project is that life is hard.
Like no one goes through life unscathed and we should just talk more about it. So that's what I want to do. I want to talk more about it. I want to talk more about the trauma and the grief and most importantly, how we continue to find hope, how we continue to move forward. And that's my goal. My goal is to offer a glimmer of hope come next year when this comes out.
Maeve Conran: Talk us through your idea then for the podcast. Who were the voices that you wanted to include? What were the stories that are often left out of the mainstream narrative when we have mass shootings? Take us through what exactly you wanted to achieve with Senseless.
Mahoney: The idea really came to me after we moved home and I started really connecting with people who are affected by the mass shooting in this different way because I was here. And the wheel started to turn and I was like, there are these incredible stories happening all around me. I need to go and record these and share these with the world. And I did that.
Mahoney: My very first interview was with my dear friend, Olivia Mackenzie. She lost her mom in the shooting and we're both young women and so we've really connected. We became friends after this, you know, she and I immediately understand each other because we both lost a parent and, you know, went through this whole thing.
And so, I met Olivia at NCAR, which has beautiful views of Boulder. And we sat on the hillside, and I interviewed her for a really long time.
Olivia Mackenzie: The initial aftermath, it's such an icky thing. It's like such an ugly, ugly thing. It makes people so uncomfortable. I mean, they don't know how to react. People shut down. So, I shut down. I chose not to speak about it, but I was so sensitive. I mean, little things, like, and I still am. I mean, if I hear somebody mention the word gun, shot, bullet — those words bother me beyond even seeing King Soopers. I got to say it was really hard to live here I think right after, because seeing those King Soopers trucks drive by all the time was just another ugly room. It felt weird and mocking. Like I was in some fever dream, like a grocery store, just something that's supposed to be kind of, you know, suburban and peaceful and normal people going about their lives in our safe country and where we shop and take care of our families. And it just felt so like trampled on.
Mahoney: It was so powerful and she really motivated me to keep doing these interviews because I gotta be honest, it's tough to sit with people and hear this because I lived it from kind of one angle. But then you start to see like, you know, we always say mass shootings have ripple effects. They really create this web of pain.
We really go there. I think we really, really get into that nitty-gritty, those dark, deep, hard moments that aren't always talked about. Beyond that, I also spoke with my therapist, and that was a really interesting interview. I don't think we often think about how these types of events affect therapists.
I mean, my therapist (Claire Bidwell Smith,) she was hearing some really hard stuff for about a year. And I know it affected her, and it affected, you know, she has a family and it affected the way that she kind of goes about her life as well.
Another piece to this is just the empathy part. And I'm so curious, how do you carry the heavy load of difficult stories that you hear from people day in and day out, including, you know, my story of losing my father to gun violence?
Claire Bidwell Smith: There's no one thing that helps me do it. I think when I went through my losses, it was so humbling. And it made me realize how much we all go through in this life. Some of us much more than others and how you never know what someone's walking around with on a day-to-day basis.
And that really just changed everything about me. It made me very curious about people. It made me really empathic, really just want to feel compassion toward everyone and connect with people on a deep level. So there's a kind of an innate desire in me now to kind of operate on that level. So on one hand, I really just enjoy being at the deepest parts of things a lot of the time.
Mahoney: I also went to the hospital where I used to volunteer and I found that one to be really interesting. I think we don't think about how doctors are reacting to this type of tragedy enough. And in this case, it was really hard because the hospital mobilized really quickly when they got the news.
And unfortunately, none of the victims of the shooting made it into the hospital because, take my dad, for example, he had no fighting chance. He was, he was shot multiple times and by a very powerful weapon so the hospital was really interesting to go to because it just showed me like there's just no chance. And when the victims can't even make it to the hospital, and the doctors can't do their jobs. So, that was really eye-opening to me.
Dr. David Whitling: I think there was very much that sense of we were ready, we wanted to do our jobs, right? We had tons of people who were very passionate about, let's start taking care of patients.
And that emptiness, where we felt like we were unable to really help in any meaningful way, was really terrible. And that still echoes in me to this day, right? It was it's just a sense of helplessness, obviously. I mean, we literally were unable to help, and we're totally prepared to do so.
Conran: In addition to being the daughter of Kevin Mahoney, who was murdered at King Soopers, you're also a reporter, a journalist.
Was that hard to balance both of those roles when you were doing those stories and doing those interviews and putting the podcast together?
Mahoney: I'm so glad you asked this question. Yes. And I have so much to say about it. And, and it reminds me of another interview I did. I went back to KGNU and interviewed a young woman who covered the event and so one of the episodes looks into how do these stories affect journalists who are on the front lines of covering it.
The day that it happened, March 22nd, 2021, I remember watching a press conference and seeing journalists get ready to record and just thinking: ‘Wow, like I'm on the other side of the story now.’
And back in 2019, I actually covered a mass shooting for national news. It was the first time I ever went live on NPR and it was really hard because that was something I had dreamed of being of doing since I was a little girl and then here I was telling this really hard, awful story and it's stuck with me ever since and then, you fast forward two years and there I was, living it.
And so for me, it's been this really weird thing where suddenly I wasn't covering this story, I was covering it and I was living it. And as journalists, you know, we're told to keep your opinion close to you because, of course, that's, that's important, right? To be neutral so you can cover stuff.
But when something like this happens to you, there's just kind of no going back and it's really kind of transformed me. I've started to get involved with the local Moms Demand Action Group, and I think that's just a really clear example of, like, this blending of kind of who I am now, because I can't not voice my opinion on this subject anymore, and yet I have all these skills to tell this story.
So, I'm still figuring it out. At the same time, I think it's, honestly, really cool and really beneficial because people felt, my interviewees felt really comfortable sitting with me because I was affected too. I think that I bring my own expertise to the subject.
Conran: Well, you really are blending your very own personal experience with the wider community's experience as well, because it has continued to reverberate throughout Boulder and really beyond. But also now with the podcast, you're also finding this huge community spirit in supporting that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I know you've got a Kickstarter campaign to get the podcast series over the line, so it will be released next year. Talk about the community support you've had in that regard.
Mahoney: I mean, in so many ways this story is about Boulder, Colorado, and how it picked up the pieces after this tragedy. And sadly, it's a story that's happening in far too many communities across America.
And my podcast really zooms into Boulder and I think that that's helpful to kind of look at this one event and really kind of dissect it and look at it and how, how did the community respond? And they responded just amazingly. I mean, I will never forget in the days following the shooting, going to King Soopers and standing in front of that massive makeshift memorial that was just around the store with flowers and cards and music.
And it was, it was so beautiful after this ugly thing that happened. And I've said this before, but I really felt like that memorial was a shield. And so from day one, the Boulder community has tried, and maybe there were mistakes and maybe things weren't done perfectly, but they tried. And that's all you can do because it's new and it's hard. And how do you start? And how do you pick up the pieces when a community is shattered?
The whole community was there for us during the trial. I'm so grateful to everyone, my friends. And then now with this Kickstarter campaign. I mean, pretty much within 24 hours, I reached my Kickstarter goal and it was thanks to people in the community and friends and family, and it just means so much to me. And it's also so motivating and reassuring that when this podcast does come out, that people want to hear the story. And I'm just so grateful.I'm truly grateful.
Conran: Well, in addition, I know you've had lots of people. In the local community, in your own personal community, who've also helped get this podcast going as well.
Mahoney: Yeah, definitely. Because, you know, I have lots of experience in audio storytelling, but doing a podcast is new in a way. And so I've kind of been learning as I go, but I'm so grateful to just everyone who's really helped me, all those people in the beginning, like Brad Turner from KUNC, he really helped me kind of see the big picture of the podcast.
You know, people from Moms Demand Action who've been supportive. This woman named Karen Jacot, she took my photo for the Kickstarter campaign. It was really fun to go do this photo shoot with her. (And she actually has a local book called “Rabbits in Driveway.”)
And what's really cool and feels really full circle is that on the podcast, my editor is my former boss from the NPR member station in Monterey, California, where I used to work. And that's just so meaningful to me.
And then I'm also partnering with my friend Daniel Wideline. He and I went to high school together at Fairview. And we were in this jazz acappella group called Excalibur. We would rehearse every single day at like 6:15 a.m., and so you know, we were all so close, but he's he's like a music genius.
He's gonna be doing some original theme music for the, for the show, and so it's just, it's really wonderful to utilize those people from, from your past, and again, it's such a community endeavor, so I'm really grateful.
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