The scene is hauntingly familiar.

A sullen figure dressed in camoflauge fatigues, toting a rifle, in a crowded shopping mall.

Wednesday it was Omaha, Neb. Twenty-two years ago it was the Springfield Mall.
It was Mischief Night, the night before Halloween. Sylvia Seegrist was no stranger to police or mental health officials. She was a troubled individual.

That didn’t stop her from acquiring a rifle and opening fire in the mall parking lot. She continued firing randomly at people as she entered the mall. Her reign of terror ended only when she was tackled by a heroic Jack Laufer, who went on to become a state trooper.

Before she was halted, Seegrist has killed a 2-year-old boy and a grandfather, and wounded seven others. Another victim succumbed a month later.

The carnage was even worse in Nebraska.

Clearly troubled teenager Robert Hawkins carried a rifle into the mall, headed for a perch in a third-floor overlook, and opened fire.

Before the 19-year-old turned the gun on himself, eight people were killed and another five wounded.

Hawkins had recently broken up with a girlfriend and lost his job at a local McDonald’s. He left behind a note that read, “Now I’ll be famous.”
He was wrong. Now he’s infamous.

Much like Seegrist, who continues to reside and get care at a state prison, where she likely will spend the rest of her days.

Some things stay with you.

I will forever remember the crackling static that I heard as I sat at the news desk on that late October day. The message was unmistakable: Shooting at the Springfield Mall.

There is never an incident involving a mall shooting that I don’t recall that initial burst from the police scanner in the newsroom.

I thought of it again yesterday when the bulletins first started moving from Omaha.
And I sat in amazement as I realized how, 22 years later, how little had changed.
My guess is there is always going to be troubled people in the world with access to guns. Yes, that includes rifles.

Hawkins entered the mall with an SKS semiautomatic Russian military rifle.
It was the deadliest shooting spree in Nebraska since January 1958.

And it becomes the latest incident involving a shooting at a crowded shopping center.

Until the next one, that is.

And until the next time I think about that horrific afternoon 22 years ago.