The Rocky Mountain Collegian

April 17th, 2007

Virginia Tech Tragedy

Dear ladies and gentleman, as I write this, I am using all of the data available to me at this time, and I apologize for anything that proves to be misconstrued or just all in all untrue. Today on the Virginia Tech campus…….tragedy struck. The death toll on campus today was 33/32 innocents killed by a single man weilding an automatic weapon. And the gunman himself, who, depending on who you hear your news from, was either shot by the police or committed suicide.

As I write this I notice that most of the stories that were written by people in the area have been taken down or censored in the past few hours, and even more are being removed as I refresh my web browser. From my connections to the campus, I have been told that the gunman started off in aj hall (ambler johnson dormitory) where he killed an RA and a student that he had some sort of dispute with. After which he then crossed campus and attended classes(He was not a student) until opening fire at Norris Hall.

Well now I’ve been told that he really did commit suicide, and the reason identification has taken so long was because of the size of the hole he put in his own head. Good for him, for his sake I hope their is a hell and the devil takes particular interest in this new orifice of his. But it’s late and I ramble. Let me put this into perspective for some of you. Think about somebody shooting an RA and a fellow student in Parmalee hall. This person then walks around campus for a few hours….and then lines people up against the walls in the Yates building, where he then starts shooting at you and your friends. You do what you can, some people jump out windows. Some people hide and crouch under chairs and desks. Many people are gunned down, blood is everywhere, bodies riddle the floor.

I’m at a point right now where i’m mad. I don’t know exactly who or what to be mad at, but i’m furious. A man killed people and then walked around campus for hours before he was stopped. Police did not evactuate campus. Students were not warned. Faculty were not helpful in the situation. Now I can see this sort of lack of action if the first shooting had not been reported, or if the incident occured on a small campus where it was easy to track where he was. But the police were notified of it. The campus is this big. < > Look at it…it even looks like CSU. They even have a fricken oval of their own.

Now While I think Larry Penley is one of the worst things to happen to this campus, I would hope to any diety out there thats listening that if something happens on campus that he would have the decency to let me know about it so i can take care of myself. If Anthrax were released on campus at 5 am and the police knew about it. And they decide not to let me know when i get to campus because they believe it is an “isolated incident”. To hell with that! But honestly, who could have foreseen something like this coming?

I still remember staring in awe at a screen for hours watching the columbine shootings. As well as on september 11th when i watched towers fall on ground i had played on as a kid. Do you know how much time i spent in front of a tv screen today? Maybe ten minutes? How much time did you spend? Hell for some people this morning may be the first time you’re hearing about it. Now maybe it’s because I’ve been desensitized to death by where I grew up and where i went to high school and what happened at columbine all those years ago. And maybe thats what has happened to everybody on campus as of late. No one seemed to care today.

Have we become so wrapped up in our own little agendas and media wars that we can’t see this as a tragedy? For the past couple of years so much has come out of the media condemning Bush and pushing for the Global Warming Fad that I think most of us are just tired of listening. 32 people our age DIED today. And not the everyday normal statistics wise ways of people dying. NO….32 people our age were KILLED today by a lone gunman. Imagine being on the stairs of the Clark building and seeing bullet shells and blood everywhere. Why hasn’t this hit home yet? What the hell is wrong with this world? What the hell is wrong with us?

And really…..what goes through a persons head that causes him….no…allows him, to kill 32 people? Obviously Jack Thompson hasn’t heard about this yet because I haven’t heard anybody blame video games yet. Obviously the democrats haven’t heard about this yet because i haven’t heard them blame this on George Bush or Global warming. And apparently the republicans haven’t heard about this yet because no one has blamed it on Al Qaida or illegal immigrants yet. So what possible reason could it be? Did someone finally just snap after years of a problematic life and decide to pay the world back for how it had treated him? Well don’t ask me……ask one of the aforementioned experts as noted above….they always seem to know the right answers.

And Honestly, who cares what the hell W said concerning the tragedy? Who cares what their president or our president said? I know I don’t give a damn about any of that. What I give a damn about is when a friend of mine tells me shes scared for her life because this sort of shit is allowed to happen on a college campus very identical to hers. To people our age. And I hope to god that that fact alone hits everybody on this campus, in some way or another.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 7:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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