In this job, I read (and occasionally write) a lot of stories about profoundly stupid people. Dumb to a degree that makes me think they’re existing in a different realm of consciousness that may transcend stupidity and loop back around into brilliance—a genius beyond mere mortal comprehension.
Or maybe they’re just really f**king dumb. I don’t know. I do know that this is one of those stories. A story about a person demonstrating a monumental degree of stupidity… but I also see the logic in it.
Anyway, a civilian employee at New Jersey’s massive Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst triggered a full-scale military lockdown because she wanted to “trauma bond” with her co-workers.
Holy s**t. Jesus Christ. What a dumba**. But also… if I extend my empathy to include the profoundly dumb, I think I get it. Like, I see what she was going for.
This Woman Faked a Mass Shooting at Work to Make Friends
Malika Brittingham, who worked for the Naval Air Warfare Center, allegedly sent a text around 10:15 a.m. claiming an active shooter was on the base. Brilliant. Great idea.
She said she’d heard “five or six shots” and was hiding in a closet with fellow employees. Superb. What a wonderful lie we should all be telling nowadays. The person she texted called 911 and the base’s operations center. Minutes later, the 42,000-acre base, which houses over 42,000 soldiers from the Army, Air Force, and Navy, went into complete lockdown.
Mind you, this all happened mere days after two separate men with military backgrounds went on their own mass shooting sprees, a now-regular occurrence in a deeply unwell nation.
Of course, it was soon discovered that there was no shooter. Just one lady who had a monumentally stupid idea for getting closer to those around her. Which, again, I get. There is no denying that you get closer to someone you’ve been through some s**t with.
Now, should you invent synthetic s**t to go through to expedite your bonding with other people? I’m saying the answer lies somewhere between “probably not” and a firm “no.” But, again, if I were a much stupider man, I could see why this would seem like a good idea at the time.
Brittingham was arrested and charged with knowingly spreading false information. When questioned, she reportedly confessed to faking the active shooter to win over colleagues she felt had ostracized her. It didn’t.
The lockdown lasted approximately an hour, and no one was hurt.
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