We waited for an unknown fate

February 15th, 2008 at 02:48pm Jeniece Smith

I’m a junior at NIU. Yesterday, I was attending classes in Reavis Hall, a classroom building adjacent to Cole Hall. Now, a day later, it’s still difficult to comprehend what happened. Less than 24 hours ago, I was crouched behind a desk in the corner of a locked computer lab, fearing for my life. I was alone in the room, other students having fled a few minutes before.

From the hallway, there came, at first, sounds of shouting and the beat of rapid footfalls. After that, things fell disturbingly quiet inside the building. I could hear only the mournful howls of the sirens and the incessant whop-whopping of the chopper blades outside.

I didn’t know what had happened or what was still happening. Furtive glances out the window told me nothing. I knelt in silence on the floor until I heard the rasp of a key being inserted into the lock of the door. I stood up and came face to face with a campus employee, who was startled to see me appear from behind a desk.

To my dismay, he had no more idea than I of what was going on. He took me to the computer lab next door, where a roomful of anxious students were sitting in stifling quiet, speaking only in hushed voices. I took a seat and listened to the conversations around me.

From every student, I heard a different possibility. One said they heard the shooter was still at large. Another jumped in, reporting they had heard there was not one shooter, but three, and that they were making their way from building to building. This remark prompted a few moments of silence, before someone said, “I heard that at least five people got shot.”

Students said their friends in other buildings had professors barricading the doors of their classrooms and waiting with their students for an unknown fate.

None of us knew that the shooting had already ended, lasting a few brief moments, before word of it could reach us. We didn’t know that the shooter had turned the gun on himself after his horrifying rampage, ending his own life.

From what other students told me later, police response was massive and swift. If the shooter had decided to continue his onslaught — or had there been more shooters — the attacks would have been effectively quelled by police action.

This knowledge is comforting, but it in no way dulls the sting of lives lost yesterday. This event has troubled me deeply, and my heart is burdened for my fellow students and their families.

Entry Filed under: Jeniece Smith