The nation witnessed a massacre on Virginia Tech’s campus yesterday — a shooting that is reportedly the largest civilian shooting in America’s history. VT Police reported the gunman killed 33 people, including himself, and injured 33 according to CNN.
“This is one of those things that you never think will ever happen to you,” Rachel Wirth, a freshman in architecture at Virginia Tech, said. “I have never felt unsafe at Virginia Tech until today, but it makes me question why I am here and what’s going to happen.”
Wirth said she woke up for classes around 11 a.m. when her neighbor had told her that classes were canceled. She said she went back to sleep, not realizing what was going on, and when she woke up again, she heard about the shootings for the first time — from the media.
“I think the police did all that they could, but I feel that since the first e-mail was sent at 9:00 [a.m.], they could have prevented some of it by sending a warning when it happened at 7:30 this morning,” Wirth said.
However, the massacre did not only deeply affect the students and community of VT — it also affected the students and community of N.C. State in different ways. Whether NCSU students knew friends, family members and others at VT, or whether they knew no one, the tragedy has traveled the border and entered the hearts, prayers and thoughts of the NCSU community.
Molly Robinson, a freshman in business management, said she was first concerned because her friend’s brother attends VT, so she called her friend to make sure her brother was OK.
“He was on lockdown in the gym for two hours,” Robinson said. “Another boy [my friend] knows was a floor above the shooter when the gunman was shooting in the dorms, and he heard it and said it was horrible.”
Robinson said she was in shock upon hearing the news and she said she hopes that, if this were to happen at NCSU, the University would take more precarious steps for students’ safety.
“This is horrible — I can’t believe people can be this ruthless and heartless,” Robinson said. “We shouldn’t have to deal with something like this at our age. It’s possible to happen, it can happen anywhere, but hopefully it never will. You can’t always control how people are going to be and act.”
Senior in political science Scott Ingles’ sister Laura lives in one of the dorms involved in the shooting. He heard about the incident first from her before turning to the news.
“She’s a freshman and the very first day of class last year another shooting had happened,” Ingles said.
Ingles said he and his family received calls from relatives all day Monday.
“I was talking to her while she was locked in her dorm,” Ingles said. “She was worried because her roommate was missing, but she found out she was at the library.”
Nicki Ryba, a freshman in sociology, said she found out about the campus massacre from friends’ text messages while she was in class, which made her nervous because she has four friends at VT.
“My first reaction was that I didn’t really know what was going on because I was in class and getting text messages asking if [my friend] Patrick was OK,” Ryba said. “When I realized what happened, I was freaking out and then I called him, but he couldn’t answer because phone lines were busy, so I was really nervous and scared that it had been him or something.”
Ryba said she eventually got in touch with Patrick, who said the situation was really scary for him.
According to Ryba, this type of incident could happen anywhere, even at N.C. State, but Campus Police should take more steps toward student safety than it did at VT.
“Patrick said that before 8:00 classes, somebody got shot and then 8:00 classes still went on,” Ryba said. “If something like that happened [at NCSU], [police] should definitely take immediate reaction instead of wait forever to notify students.”
Robinson said she agreed and that she would hope that NCSU Campus Police would respond to the situation more efficiently.
“I hope the school would notify the students faster because at VT, the students weren’t aware of the situation until later,” Robinson said. “At first there was an e-mail saying they were just investigating it, and no mention of a lockdown, but meanwhile, 22 people [at 1:30 p.m.] were reported dead.”
Brooke Powell, who was in disbelief when she got back from her class at 1:30 p.m. to see that 21 more people had been declared dead, said it scares her to think that something like this could happen anywhere, even at NCSU.
“It is unimaginable that one person can cause so much pain,” Powell, a sophomore in business management, said. “I hope the [NCSU] police would respond in the quickest manner possible so that the problem was contained and even more tragedy is prevented. I don’t think there is a way to necessarily to prevent things like this from happening though.”