They broke out windows to escape, barricaded doors and hid under blankets. They silenced their phones \u2014 afraid to make even the slightest sound for hours as police searched for a gunman who had already killed three students and critically wounded five others on the Michigan State University campus.
\nThe terror felt by thousands of students \u2014 some experiencing their second mass shooting \u2014 was evident in texts to parents, posts on social media and in 911 calls.
\nIt started around 8:30 p.m. Monday when Anthony McRae, a 43-year-old with a previous gun violation, opened fire inside an academic building and the student union.
\nAlerts sent out to students urged them to \u201crun, hide, fight,\u201d and video showed them fleeing as police swarmed toward the chaos. The massive search that ensued ended roughly three hours later when McRae fatally shot himself in a confrontation with police miles from campus, officials said Tuesday.
\nMcRae was neither a student nor an employee of the university. The motive is a mystery.
\nJaqueline Matthews, a member of the Michigan State rowing team, crouched for so long when gunfire erupted at Sandy Hook Elementary that her back is permanently injured. Now a decade later, the 21-year-old international law major was watching chaos outside her campus window, stunned to find herself here yet again.
\n\u201cThe fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible,\u201d she said in a TikTok video that she recorded in the early morning hours, demanding legislative action. \u201cWe can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.\u201d
\nShe wasn\u2019t the only one experiencing her second mass shooting. Jennifer Mancini told the Detroit Free Press that her daughter also had survived the November 2021 shooting that left four students dead at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan. Now a freshman at Michigan State, her daughter was traumatized anew.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe this is happening again,\u201d said Mancini, who didn\u2019t want her daughter\u2019s name used.
\nOthers across campus experienced the terror for the first time.
\nTed Zimbo, a 26-year-old astrophysics major, said he was heading back to his residence hall after an off-campus meeting when he saw police cars everywhere and a blood-covered woman hiding behind a car. She told him that someone came into her classroom and started shooting.
\n\u201cHer hands were completely covered in blood. It was on her pants and her shoes,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cShe said, \u2018It\u2019s my friend\u2019s blood.\u2019\u201d
\nThat, he said, is when it hit him: \u201cThere was a real shooting, a mass shooting.\u201d
\nThe woman picked up her phone and started crying, unsure of what happened to her friend. Zimbo spent the next three hours hunkered down in his Toyota SUV, a blanket tossed over him.
\nIn a nearby residence hall, Karah Tanski said she spent two hours \u201ccrunched under a desk, crying, thinking I was literally going to die.\u201d
\nThe 22-year-old resident assistant said about 40 freshmen relied on her, social media and police scanners for updates during the lockdown. From empty bomb threats to incorrect details about the shooter, the updates were sometimes wrong and added to the \u201cmass hysteria\u201d of the night, Tanski said.
\nAbout a half-mile east of campus, junior Aedan Kelley hid with his roommate, locking his doors and covering windows.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s all very frightening. And then I have all these people texting me wondering if I\u2019m OK, which is overwhelming,\u201d he said.
\nRyan Kunkel, 22, said he and his classmates turned off the lights and acted like there \u201cwas a shooter right outside the door.\u201d For more than four hours, as they waited, \u201cnothing came out of anyone\u2019s mouth,\u201d he recalled.
\n\u201cThis is supposed to be a place where I\u2019m coming, learning and bettering myself. And instead, students are getting hurt.\u201d
\nDominik Molotky said he was in a Cuban history class when he and the other students heard a gunshot right outside the classroom. He told ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America\u201d that a few seconds later the gunman entered the classroom and fired three to four more rounds while the students took cover.
\n\u201cAfter that we broke out the window, and I climbed out of there. And then I booked it back to my apartment,\u201d he said.
\nClaire Papoulias, a sophomore, told NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show she was listening to a history lecture when she heard gunshots and dropped to the floor.
\n\u201cAt that moment,\u201d she said, \u201cI thought that I was going to die, I was so scared.\u201d
\nShe said she quietly called her mom while classmates opened a window and helped people to jump to safety. Once outside, she grabbed her backpack and phone.
\n\u201cAnd I remember,\u201d she said, \u201cI just ran for my life.\u201d
\nSophomores Jake Doohan and Nicole Stark were walking off campus when they heard about the shooting and took shelter, barricading a door with a dresser.
\nWith the blinds closed so \u201cnot a speck of light could get out,\u201d Stark said she felt like they were watching the news, as though \u201cit\u2019s not actually happening to us.\u201d
\nThe senselessness of it left Doohan stunned.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s sad to think,\u201d he said, \u201cthat things like this will happen just out of the blue to anybody or anywhere.\u201d
\nJohn and Rona Szydzik, who both graduated from Michigan State University, left flowers on the campus Tuesday after spending the previous night hiding as ambulances wailed past their home.
\nAs a high school teacher, Rona Szydzik has drilled for years to \u201crun, hide, fight.\u201d But she added: \u201cTo actually be in it, that\u2019s very shocking.\u201d For her husband, the flowers were a way to let the victims\u2019 families know they cared, that they were praying.
\n\u201cIt really was tough,\u201d he said, becoming emotional as he spoke.<\/p>\n
Apnews<\/p>\n
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They broke out windows to escape, barricaded doors and hid under blankets. They silenced their phones \u2014 afraid to make even the slightest sound for hours as police searched for a gunman who had already killed three students and critically wounded five others on the Michigan State University campus. The terror felt by thousands of students \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1868,1375,1974],"class_list":["post-5867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-michigan","tag-state","tag-they"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}