Virginia Tech

I assume most of you have heard/seen the news about the shooting today on VaTech campus.

If not, the short story is that an unidentified person approached a Tech police officer around 12noon and shot and killed him in a parking lot on campus.  This person fled on foot towards another parking lot (the cage), where a second individual was later found dead.  A weapon was found near this person, and it is presumed he is likely the shooter, although not confirmed.

All of this went down while I was sitting in a seminar in the vet school.  At the end of the seminar, it was announced there had been a shooting and we were on lockdown.  I had my cell phone on me, but of course decided it would be the ONE day I didn't have my laptop with me.  I was only supposed to be at the vet school for that seminar, then going back to my lab which is in a different building off campus.  Needless to say I rushed to the library computers to get more info, and started texting family to let them know what was going on.

There was a rapid and vigorous police response, and those of us who were stuck waited pretty patiently for every scrap of news.  It was a crystal chilly winter day, and the bright cheerful sunlight seemed weirdly out of place.....nobody was freaking out, but everybody was pretty anxious.  The lockdown was lifted around 4:30pm after no further incidents and with a very heavy police presence on campus.

The situation is disturbing on many levels -
It's horrible that a police officer was shot and killed, regardless of the circumstances.
It's horrible that another person died.
It's creepy that it  happened within walking distance of the vet college where I was.
It's creepier that only 20mins before, I had parked my truck in the same parking lot where the second body was found.
It's a terrible blow to the university's people after having suffered so much trauma in 2007.

While tragic, this incident might not be so remarkable by crime statistic standards.  We still don't know who exactly the shooter was, if there was motive or mental illness involved.  It might be as simple and horrible as someone over-reacting to a drug bust - we just don't know yet.

However, in this place, it echos the senseless violence that occurred in 2007 and set everyone on edge.  While I wasn't a Tech student at the time, being at an academic institution (UVa) and so close to Tech that I got a glimpse of the horror of that event.  There is something about indiscriminate violence, the kind that tears at the fabric of human civility which covers us all, that is profoundly disturbing.

I think that's the best description for how I feel about today: disturbed.  While the events may have been a far cry from the tragedy that struck in 2007 and I was perfectly safe, it made me think a LOT about meaningless violence.

So I talked to my family, emailed with friends, and gave my husband a lot of hugs tonight.  I suggest you all do the same.