Oak Creek Mayor Steve Scaffidi weighs in on Boston tragedy

OAK CREEK (WITI) -- Two members of the Oak Creek Fire Department were running the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15th -- when several were injured after two explosions went off.

Oak Creek Mayor Steve Scaffidi had only been mayor of Oak Creek for four months when a gunman opened fire at the Sikh Temple, killing a half dozen people.

That happened on August 5th.

Scaffidi remembers it well, and can easily imagine what the people and officials of Boston are going through.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to the folks in Boston. For the people who are there just trying to get to safety, trying to figure out where a safe place is. For a leader, for a mayor, for a governor, whatever, it`s to try to calm people down because chaos and that type of thing does not help the situation. I`m sure that leadership in that area are focusing on that, and trying to say `we`ll figure this out.` And law enforcement descends on it quickly and they usually sort it out pretty fast," Scaffidi said.

Scaffidi says while he was trying to calm others down in the wake of the Sikh Temple shooting, he had to get himself under control because he was dealing with the fear and grief just like everyone else.

"You`re not going to serve anybody`s purpose or calm anybody down by being irrational or over-responding at the moment it happens. You have to maintain some calm about you," Scaffidi said.

Scaffidi said he is heartbroken by the events in Boston -- having run marathons himself.

"I know some people that are running in that race. And I`ve run marathons and I feel the sorrow of that. You`re celebrating a great triumph and finishing a race like that, 26.2 miles, and then to have that thrown into your lap is horrible. So my thoughts and prayers go out to those people," Scaffidi said.

An Oak Creek firefighter ran in Monday's race, but was not injured in the explosions.

"I know him. I actually wrote a story about him last year on our employee thing, so good guy -- good guy," Scaffidi said.

FOX6 News has learned another Oak Creek firefighter was there to cheer on his girlfriend, who was running the Marathon. They too were not injured.

Scaffidi says he believes more needs to be done to stop incidents like what happened in Boston and in Oak Creek.

"That rapidly escalating cycle concerns me. That`s why I`ve been pretty vocal about saying we need to think about all of those issues and how we deal with each other," Scaffidi said.