美國機場巨響被當槍聲 恐怖主義引發全民恐慌

It sounded like a stampede of cattle, DonnaMelanson said —30 to 40 people fleeing, terrified, throughLos Angeles International Airport on Sunday night.

聽上去像狂奔的牛羣一樣，唐娜.梅蘭森(Donna Melanson)說。週日晚上在洛杉磯國際機場，三四十人四處逃散，驚恐萬分。

Everyone is yelling, ‘Shooter,shooter, shooter,’and they start diving under the seats to hide.

所有人都在喊，‘槍手、槍手、槍手，’然後開始鑽到座位底下藏起來。

Ms. Melanson, 53, a yoga instructor who waswaiting to fly home to Miami,

現年53歲的梅蘭森是瑜伽教練，正等着搭乘飛機回邁阿密的家。

grabbed her bag and joined the stampedebecause, she said, I couldn’t think of why people would be running unless there was a trueemergency.

她一把抓起行李，加入狂奔的人羣，因爲她說，除非真的出現了緊急情況，否則我想不到大家爲什麼會跑。

There was not.

實際並未發生緊急情況。

A loud noise mistaken for gunfire led torumors

一聲巨響被誤以爲是槍聲，進而引發傳言。

that spread at blazing speed in person andon social media, setting off a panic that shut down one of the nation’s busiestairports,

傳言以閃電般的速度在人們口中和社交媒體上傳播，造成恐慌，最終導致這座屬於全美最繁忙之列的機場關閉。

as passengers fled terminals and burstthrough security cordons, and as the police struggled to figure out what washappening and to restore order.

乘客逃離航站樓，衝破安全警戒線，警察則努力想要弄清楚發生了什麼事，並恢復秩序。

Far from being an isolated episode, it wasessentially what had happened on Aug.

這遠不是一起孤立事件。

13 at a mall in Raleigh, N.C.; on Aug. 14at Kennedy International Airport in New York; on Aug. 20 at a mall in Michigan;and on Aug. 25 at a mall in Orlando, Fla.

基本上，這一幕8月13日在北卡羅來納州羅利的一家商場、8月14日在紐約肯尼迪國際機場、8月20日在密西根州的一家商場、8月25日在佛羅里達州奧蘭多的一家商場均上演過。

In the wake of terrorist attacks atairports in Brussels and Istanbul — and against other targets in Paris; SanBernardino, Calif.; Orlando; Nice, France; and elsewhere — Americans areprimed, when they hear a loud bang or screams, or see a crowd break into a run,to think in terms of mass killings and active shooters.

在布魯塞爾和伊斯坦布爾的機場，以及巴黎、加利福尼亞州聖貝納迪諾、奧蘭多、法國尼斯等地的其他一些目標遭遇恐怖襲擊後，美國民衆一聽到巨大的響聲或尖叫聲，或是看到人羣突然開始奔跑，就會想到大規模殺戮事件和正在開槍的兇手。

Yet crime statistics show that over all,violence in the United States is as low as it has ever been, and experts saythe fear far exceeds the risk.

但犯罪統計數據顯示，總的來說，美國的暴力事件發生機率處於歷史最低水平，並且專家表示，民衆的恐懼遠遠超出了真實的風險。

I would say that we are in the grip of amoral panic, said John Horgan, a professor of global studies and psychology atGeorgia State University who specializes in the study of terrorism.

我想說，我們陷入了一種道德恐慌，喬治亞州立大學(Georgia State University)專門研究恐怖主義的全球研究與心理學教授約翰.霍根(JohnHorgan)說。

The constant threat perception of beingvulnerable to mass violence has seeped into our collective consciousness.

始終認爲自己會受到大規模暴力事件的傷害這種想法，逐漸滲進了我們的集體意識。

Sam Macon, 36, a documentary filmmaker whowas at the Los Angeles airport on Sunday, said: People who were running hadabsolutely no idea why they were doing so.

週日當天，36歲的紀錄片工作者薩姆.梅肯(Sam Macon)也在洛杉磯機場。他說：跑的人肯定不知道自己爲什麼跑。

I don’t think it takes asocial scientist to understand that the general tenor of American society rightnow is that we’re all wound up pretty tight.

我認爲不需要社會科學家就知道，美國社會現在的主基調就是我們都很緊張。

The recent false-alarm panics injureddozens of people, some of them seriously.

最近，假警報引發的恐慌導致數十人受傷，部分人傷勢嚴重。

Kokila Patel, 66, and her husband, Manu,74, had just finished lunch at a Panera in the Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleighon Aug.

在8月13日，66歲的戈吉拉.帕特爾(Kokila Patel)剛和74歲的丈夫馬努(Manu)在羅利的克雷布特裏山谷購物中心(Crabtree Valley Mall)吃完午飯就聽到響聲。

13 when she heard a noise and turned to seepanicked shoppers surging toward them.

她轉過身，看到驚慌失措的購物者向他們涌來。

People had taken still-unexplained soundsfor gunshots, screamed, dived into stores and made a chaotic rush for theexits, paying little heed to what was in their way —includingthe Patels.

大家把迄今仍原因不明的響聲當成了槍聲，尖叫着衝進店鋪裏，一片混亂地涌向出口，幾乎不管擋在自己面前的是什麼，包括帕特爾夫婦。

The crowd knocked the couple down andtrampled Ms.

人羣將這對夫婦撞倒，並從帕特爾身上踩過，導致她右股骨碎裂。

Patel, breaking her right femur and leavingher to wait in searing pain for two hours until police officers in tacticalgear arrived and helped carry her out of the mall on a plastic display table.

她在劇痛中等了兩個小時，攜帶着戰術裝備的警察纔到達現場，幫忙把她放在一張塑料展示桌上擡出商場。

Surgeons braced her shattered leg with asteel rod, plate and screws, but the pain is still intense.

外科醫生用鋼棍、金屬板和螺絲把她粉碎性骨折的那條腿固定了起來，但痛感依然劇烈。

Ms. Patel, who usually travels to India forthree months each year with her husband, remains homebound.

通常每年都要和丈夫去印度待三個月的帕特爾至今仍被迫待在家裏。

People always think, ‘A gunman, agunman,’said Ms. Patel, who with her husband was earlier interviewed by TheNews and Observer.

大家總以爲，‘槍手，槍手，’帕特爾早前和丈夫一起接受《新聞與觀察報》(The News and Observer)的採訪時說。

People’s mentality arechanging. People are always being afraid.

人們的心態變了，總是很害怕。

Mr. Patel said he could see fear on thefaces of the people who rushed over him and his wife.

帕特爾的丈夫說，他能在朝自己和妻子衝過來的人臉上看到恐懼。

They thought that somebody’s there tokill them, he said.

他們以爲那裏有人要殺他們，他說。

Psychologically, we have been damaged.

從心理上來說，我們有創傷。

Social media feeds that kind of frenzy,said Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychology and social behavior at theUniversity of California, Irvine.

加州大學歐文分校(University of California, Irvine)的心理學與社會行爲教授羅克珊.科恩.西爾弗(RoxaneCohen Silver)表示，社交媒體加劇了這種瘋狂。

There’s rapiddissemination of information on social media that’s not being filteredby anybody, she said.

未經任何人過濾的信息在社交媒體上迅速傳播，她說。

This provides the unfortunate opportunityfor rumors to be transmitted very quickly, without any ability to evaluate theveracity.

遺憾的是，這讓流言有機會火速擴散，人們無法評估其真實性。

Before there were television news reportsabout what was happening at the Los Angeles airport, she said, her son inChicago had called to tell her, I’m watching Twitter videos of people running at LAX.

她說，在介紹洛杉磯機場所發生的事情的電視新聞報道出來之前，在芝加哥的兒子打電話和她說，我正在Twitter上看洛杉磯機場人羣奔跑的視頻。

At the Florida Mall in Orlando, poppingballoons were apparently mistaken for gunshots.

在奧蘭多佛羅里達購物中心(Florida Mall)，人們似乎把氣球爆裂的聲音當成了槍聲。

At the Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, Mich., itwas a glass door toppling to the floor, knocked over by thieves who had smasheda glass display class in a jewelry store to grab two luxury watches.

在密歇根州諾維的十二棵橡樹購物中心(Twelve Oaks Mall)，則是一扇玻璃門被竊賊撞倒在地上的聲音。在那之前，竊賊爲了搶走兩塊名貴腕錶而打破了一家珠寶店的玻璃展臺。

As the robbers ran, so did shoppers, andpeople posted videos of the chaotic scene on social media and said —falsely —that shots hadbeen fired.

隨着搶劫者逃跑，購物者也跟着跑了起來。有人把一片混亂的現場視頻發佈在了社交媒體上，並錯誤地宣稱有人開火。

That message spread fast, and calls to theNovi police overwhelmed the 911 system, shunting overflow callers to the statepolice.

這個消息迅速擴散，打給諾維警方的電話淹沒了911報警系統，無法打入電話的人被迫致電州警方。

It’s a wildfire you tryto control, said Detective t Baetens of the Novi Police Department.

你試圖控制的是一場野火，諾維警察局的探員斯科特.貝滕斯警佐(Scott Baetens)說。

We try to put out timely and accurateinformation.

我們努力發佈及時、準確的信息。

But you can’t put it out fastenough to beat Twitter and Facebook.

但你的速度不足以超過Twitter和Facebook。

Once people start to flee, it is fairlynormal for others to join in, experts say —even people who didnot hear any suspicious sounds or rumors of terrorism.

專家稱，一旦有人開始逃散，其他人加入很正常，即便是沒聽到任何可疑的聲響或恐怖活動傳言的人。

But people who study crowd psychology andthe fear of terrorism say the steady stream of news reports of bloodshed hasheightened anxieties out of proportion to the threat, making panic more likelyto take hold.

但研究從衆心理和對恐怖主義的恐懼的人士表示，源源不斷的有關流血事件的新聞報道加劇了民衆對威脅的過度焦慮，導致爆發恐慌的可能性增加。

This overexposure can cause increased fear,anxiety and helplessness, particularly in already psychologically vulnerablepopulations, said Daniel Antonius, an assistant professor of psychiatry at theUniversity at Buffalo.

這種過度報道可能會導致恐懼、焦慮和無助情緒加劇，特別是在心理上已經頗爲脆弱的羣體中，紐約州立大學布法羅分校(University at Buffalo)的精神病學助理教授丹尼爾.安東尼厄斯(DanielAntonius)說。

He described a national anxiety about massattacks that did not reflect the real level of danger.

他認爲，對大規模襲擊的全民焦慮未反映出真正的危險程度。

Dr. Horgan stressed that in addition tophysical violence, terrorism is fundamentally a form of psychological warfare,and it’s one of the greatest ironies that we help give it its strength inour reactions to it.

霍根強調，除身體上遭受的暴力外，恐怖主義本質上是一種心理戰，我們對它做出的反應助長了它的力量，而這堪稱最大的諷刺之一。