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A few thoughts
Oct. 8th, 2007 08:31 pmThings like what happened at VA Tech seem so far away. You feel sympathy for them, but you can't imagine how the students on campus felt when they heard what was happening on their campus.
Yesterday morning (Sunday) at about 9.30, I was woken by my roommate's phone ringing obnoxiously loudly. As we'd been to a party the night before, neither of us especially wanted to hear that. Cursing to myself, I wondered who the hell was calling at that time of morning. After Kat hung up her phone, I mumbled that whoever that had been had better have a damn good reason for calling. It was one of our friends who lived in a different dorm, and who had a tennis match later in the morning, so he was awake. First he asked if Kat had checked her email or the school website. (Obviously not, as we were all still asleep.) So he told us there had been an "alleged shooting" in one of the freshman dorms, Travers. Students were requested to stay where they were, so as to facilitate the police investigation.
This is one piece of news that is almost guaranteed to wake anyone completely up. It certainly did me. Kat and I checked the website for updates every ten minutes, put on the news, and sat together, wondering what was happening. The fear, even terror, we felt, wondering what had happened, can really only be imagined. The news media, of course, was all over it. And I can't even imagine how the students who were here two years ago, the ones who were here when John Fiocco Jr went missing and whose body was later foun in a PA landfill, felt, knowing that if something had happened, we'd get an unbeliveable amount of media attention. (Which TCNJ does not need again.)Seeing your college on the news, watching the reporters grill a College rep, to try to find out just how much potential death and mayhem they can come up with, is really a surreal experience.
The shooting did turn out to be a hoax 911 call; a 19-year-old, not a student here, has been arrested and is on $25,000 bail. By noon, we were allowed to leave our dorms, though guests weren't allowed in until evening, and there were police officers all over the campus. The kid had been caught by that night, and today it seems like something that happened to someone else in another lifetime. No one thinks any sort of disaster will happen to them; not until it happens...then you're in shock.
I thank God that the whole thing was a hoax, and that no one was actually hurt. Still, this whole experience makes me think. And I honestly don't think I've ever been more scared in my life.
Wow...heavy stuff. Going to the ren faire weekend after this one, so there should be some nice piccies, and back to your regularly scheduled happy costuming updates!
Yesterday morning (Sunday) at about 9.30, I was woken by my roommate's phone ringing obnoxiously loudly. As we'd been to a party the night before, neither of us especially wanted to hear that. Cursing to myself, I wondered who the hell was calling at that time of morning. After Kat hung up her phone, I mumbled that whoever that had been had better have a damn good reason for calling. It was one of our friends who lived in a different dorm, and who had a tennis match later in the morning, so he was awake. First he asked if Kat had checked her email or the school website. (Obviously not, as we were all still asleep.) So he told us there had been an "alleged shooting" in one of the freshman dorms, Travers. Students were requested to stay where they were, so as to facilitate the police investigation.
This is one piece of news that is almost guaranteed to wake anyone completely up. It certainly did me. Kat and I checked the website for updates every ten minutes, put on the news, and sat together, wondering what was happening. The fear, even terror, we felt, wondering what had happened, can really only be imagined. The news media, of course, was all over it. And I can't even imagine how the students who were here two years ago, the ones who were here when John Fiocco Jr went missing and whose body was later foun in a PA landfill, felt, knowing that if something had happened, we'd get an unbeliveable amount of media attention. (Which TCNJ does not need again.)Seeing your college on the news, watching the reporters grill a College rep, to try to find out just how much potential death and mayhem they can come up with, is really a surreal experience.
The shooting did turn out to be a hoax 911 call; a 19-year-old, not a student here, has been arrested and is on $25,000 bail. By noon, we were allowed to leave our dorms, though guests weren't allowed in until evening, and there were police officers all over the campus. The kid had been caught by that night, and today it seems like something that happened to someone else in another lifetime. No one thinks any sort of disaster will happen to them; not until it happens...then you're in shock.
I thank God that the whole thing was a hoax, and that no one was actually hurt. Still, this whole experience makes me think. And I honestly don't think I've ever been more scared in my life.
Wow...heavy stuff. Going to the ren faire weekend after this one, so there should be some nice piccies, and back to your regularly scheduled happy costuming updates!
