The first day of my last semester of college. I had just sat down in my third class of the day, Criminology. My professor was giving an introduction to the course and had started an overview of crime throughout the last century. He had just brought up the University of Texas Tower Shooting, and I was staring at the next slide, a picture of Ted Bundy. A few rows ahead of me, a group of girls started murmuring. Slowly, the murmur took over the room, so much so that the professor stopped the lecture to ask what was going on. The girls in front of me spoke up and, in a somewhat joking tone, let the professor know an emergency alert had been sent out. My phone was on Do Not Disturb, so I checked for myself. My stomach dropped.
“REPORTED WEAPONS INCIDENT @ ******, SOUTH CAMPUS. POLICE/EMERGENCY RESPONDERS EN ROUTE. AVOID AREA. STAY INSIDE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. RUN, HIDE, FIGHT”
We were on South Campus. My first thought was, “It’s finally happening to me.”
There was unrest in the classroom. Some students were making jokes. Everyone was unsure what to do. My professor stopped lecturing, and we sat chattering amongst ourselves. All of us were scouring our social media and group chats for more information. Slowly, a video started to emerge as we shared information. The video showed a man in a black ski mask carrying what looked like a rifle. The video had been captured from a dorm room window. The man was walking towards campus, holding up the weapon and pointing it around him. The tone in the room shifted quickly. Another emergency alert popped up.
****** PD IS LOOKING FOR A 5’5 ASIAN MALE WEARING A GREY OR WHITE SWEATSHIRT AND BLACK SHORTS CARRYING A LONG WEAPON. SEEN IN THE REAR OF *******. IF SEEN CALL POLICE OR CITY OF ****** 911. DO NOT APPROACH OR ENGAGE.
What followed was 3 hours of locking down inside an auditorium with about 150 other students. One of the doors of our classroom did not lock, so we barricaded it shut to the best of our ability with tables, chairs, stools, and a student’s belt. We put whiteboards and tables down on the ground to hide behind in case of bullets. Everyone was calling their family. Some students cried while others huddled around them, offering hugs and whispers of support. Some students tuned into local police scanners, trying to decipher the static messages. No one knew what was going on. We had sporadic updates from the emergency alerts, but they held no real information. I had to send my parents The Text: “There’s a gunman on campus”.
I could go on and on about what went on in those three hours. I could go on and on about my disappointment in my school’s response. I could talk about how, for those three hours, I was sitting by myself, imagining what I would do if the shooter came into the room, what I could hide behind, how I could pretend to play dead. Desperately cycling through the safety measures that had been ingrained into my head as a child.
But I’m writing this blog post to give insight into the world young adults live in today. You may look at my generation and see young adults who are “disconnected from reality,” who are “not involved,” who seem to “not take anything seriously.” But I can tell you that we are all acutely aware of our reality. Our reality is that we don’t feel safe. If you asked a teen 20 years ago how many people they knew who had been in a shooting, their answer would probably be zero. If you asked me that question today, my answer would be four. I have four close friends who have been in a school shooting. All four of those friends had a shooting on their college campus. One friend has been in TWO shootings, one at his college and one at a baseball game. As I write this now, I’m realizing there are even more. Old classmates who attend schools that have had active shootings in the last 3 years. I myself can now say I have been in a “shooter” lockdown.
I use quotations because it did not end up being an active shooting, and the “long weapon” was actually a toy gun painted black. I am eternally grateful that this was the outcome for my school.
But it’s not the outcome for many, many schools, concerts, clubs, and public spaces. Young adults are scared. This is our normal. And we feel like there’s nothing we can do about it.
I was nine when Sandy Hook happened. I was fourteen when I watched news footage of Parkland one day after school. I participated in a county-wide walkout in middle school in support of gun reform. I attended March For Our Lives and listened to the students from Parkland speak alongside parents who had lost children in school shootings. And yet today, I am still afraid. Afraid for my own safety, afraid for the safety of my friends, and afraid for my younger sister, who would not be able to protect herself in an emergency.
But my fear doesn’t make me cower. It doesn’t turn into apathy. My fear makes me deeply angry. And I will continue to use that anger, alongside the anger of thousands of others across the country, to demand change. Because nothing will happen if we don’t make it happen. Because young people across the nation deserve better.
***Certain identifying information has been removed
Written by Anna Cady Clouse, a Youth MOVE Massachusetts Peer Specialist
