Staff Editorial

UT tragedy shows how connected we are

For all three of you that don’t know, a lone gunman at the University of Texas at Austin brought an AK-47 to campus Tuesday and fired a few shots before killing himself in the campus library.

Luckily, no one else was hurt, but the fact remains: school shootings happen, and they happen unexpectedly. The gunman opened fire at around 8 a.m. near the UT Tower then retreated to the library after being chased by police. These kinds of things don’t happen in the middle of the night; they occur right when everyone’s at their most vulnerable.

Because of the quick response of UT campus security and the Austin Police Department, the entire campus was quickly secured. Officials even searched buildings in case there were any explosive devices lurking around. It’s clear that after numerous attacks on college campuses, security has been tightened and responds quickly to any threat that may arise.

All over the UH campus today, students were texting, tweeting and Facebooking their friends in Austin just to find out if they were all right. The University of Texas’ campus went into lockdown for quite some time, and students were posting constant updates from whatever building they were trapped in, letting their families know they weren’t harmed in the failed assault.

Yeah, UH has a semi-rivalry with other Texas schools (especially the ones that already have their flagship status.) The Daily Cougar was definitely cheering when UCLA stomped UT harder than they beat us. And sometimes students (even the Daily Cougar) talk trash about other campuses — and we can be pretty harsh when we really set our minds to it. But then something like this happens, and it puts everything in perspective.

When all is said and done, we’re all just students. It’s fun to bash each other every once in a while, but we certainly don’t want anyone to get shot. The shooter — who has been identified as 19-year-old UT student Colton Tooley — clearly had some serious problems, and it’s tragic that they led him to bring an assault rifle to campus.

We’re glad no bystanders were injured, and we hope everything returns to normal for students in Austin today. And remember — the next time we play each other, in any sport, everything we say is just for fun.

2 Comments

  • A: the shooter was not chased by police
    B: if he had intention of killing people he would have done so as the time the shot were fired is a very crowded time on UT streets
    C: It took 5 minuest for police to respond thats way to long to entrust your safty to when some nut with a gun is running around
    http://www.concealedcampus.org/

  • What tragedy?

    Some guy off'ed himself, no one else was hurt, yay for lack of innocent victims, and yay for Darwin wins again!

    I can only imagine what "drove him" to bring a rifle to school and take himself out.

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