We are never safe. Not even here...
Shooting victim hopes attack puts gun control on nation's radar
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEATTLE -- A woman wounded in last month's deadly shooting rampage at Seattle's Jewish Federation offices says she hopes the attack helps the public and lawmakers see a need for tighter gun control laws.
"How and why the murderer who invaded my workplace a couple of weeks ago was able to legally acquire two semiautomatic weapons in our state is still a very disturbing mystery to me," Dayna Klein, 37, said Thursday, seated next to her husband at a news conference in a downtown hotel.
Klein said she met with former President Bill Clinton last week while in New York, discussed both gun control and workplace safety with him and was encouraged by the conversation.
"His foundation is committed to doing similar things domestically, so this will be a project that we potentially will have an opportunity to collaborate on in the future," Klein said.
One woman died and five were injured in the July 28 shooting, when police say Naveed Afzal Haq stormed into the Jewish center and opened fire, declaring he was a Muslim angry at the United States' support of Israel.
Haq, 30, pleaded not guilty this week to aggravated first-degree murder, five counts of attempted murder and other charges. He faces either life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted in the death of Pamela Waechter, 58, director of the Jewish charity's annual fundraising campaign.
Klein, who was 17 weeks pregnant at the time of the shooting, was shot in her left forearm as she tried to shield her belly. The bullet shattered a bone and grazed one of her legs before landing in the carpet in her office. She called 911 moments later, despite the gunman's declaration that he would kill anyone who contacted authorities.
"I didn't even think about it. It never occurred to me to be afraid - mother of the year, right?" she said with a laugh.
Klein said crisis intervention training she received while working for the American Red Cross helped her take such quick action, and she hopes such training will become more widely offered in workplaces across the country.
Wearing a purple rehabilitation brace, Klein said it will be another month before doctors can say whether the transplant of a metal rod that took the place of the shattered bone was successful.
She also suffered nerve damage and said she won't know for three to six months whether she'll regain any or all of the movement in her left forearm. She's preparing for the worst, knowing that she may have to nurse or change her baby's diapers with full use of only one of her arms.
Klein, the federation's director of major gifts, said she's concerned about the possibility that she won't be able to carry her baby to term because of a dearth of research on the effects of trauma on pregnant women.
"In that 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' book, there's no chapter on, like, when you get shot in your second trimester," Klein said with a soft chuckle.
She said she has five to seven doctor's appointments a week, plus physical therapy and psychological counseling, and is bracing for the possibility of grappling with a lifelong disability.
King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against Haq. Klein said she's glad she doesn't have to make that call and will support whatever Maleng decides.
She said she'll offer any help prosecutors ask of her, but that she has no plans to follow Haq's case closely.
"Naveed Haq has wasted enough of my time," she said. "I'm not a person who's interested in looking backwards. I'm a person who looks forward."
Two of the women wounded in the shooting remained at Harborview Medical Center on Thursday. Layla Bush, 23, was in serious condition in the intensive care unit, and Cheryl Stumbo, 43, was in satisfactory condition, hospital spokeswoman Pamela Steele said. Christina Rexroad, 29, and Carol Goldman, 35, had been released.
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