MSU students: ‘You never think it will be your school’
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University student Lindsey Van Hekken was at the school’s Student Union with two friends, eating in the dining area Monday evening, when she heard a loud bang.
With experience in the restaurant industry, she thought it was a heavy pan dropping. Her friends, on the other hand, thought it was balloons leftover from the Super Bowl that were popping.
Neither was true. It was gunfire.
“It was all kind of blurry,” said Van Hekken, whose two friends pulled her under the table to take cover. “... I kind of feel like I blacked out. I remember saying, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god’ over and over again.’”
Just hours after a gunman opened fire on Michigan State’s campus, killing three and injuring five before police said he took his own life, campus was eerily quiet Tuesday as students and staff tried to make sense of what had just unfolded. Killed were Brian Fraser of Grosse Pointe, Mich. and Arielle Anderson of Harper Woods, Mich., both Grosse Pointe schools graduates, and Alexandria Verner, a graduate of Clawson High School.
The gunman, identified as 43-year-old Anthony Mcrae, was not affiliated with MSU as a student or employee, police said.
Many students recounted stories of barricading themselves in their rooms or lecture halls with the lights turned out for hours, wondering when, or if, they’d be safe again.
It was “completely surreal,” said Madilyn Lajoice, 19, a sophomore from Farmington Hills, Mich., who spent hours barricaded in her dorm room at Campbell Hall with the lights turned out. “...I never felt so unsafe as last night.”
With just over 50,000 students, Michigan State University is Michigan’s second largest university.
After leaving the Union, Van Hekken remembers running to Landon Hall where she lives. She
barricaded her door with a dresser and starting hyperventilating.
“You never think it will be your school. And then it is,” Van Hekken said Tuesday.
By late Tuesday morning, more students were walking around campus and a growing number of parents had arrived to pick up loved ones. Classes are canceled until Monday.
A new message had already been painted on MSU’S “rock,” a campus landmark, that read “How Many More?” in red paint.
Devin Crawford, a sophomore at MSU, placed a small candle and a stuffed animal at the rock early Tuesday afternoon.
“I don’t understand why anybody would do something like that,” said Crawford, 19, who barricaded his dresser in front of his dorm door in Mayo Hall and listened to the chatter on the police scanner until students were given the all clear Monday night. “We’re over here, we’re all just trying to really process what’s happening and if someone needs a shoulder to lean on on or any extra help anywhere, I’m sure that everyone’s going to be there to back them up.”
Not far away, a small makeshift memorial started to emerge at the Sparty statue, another campus landmark, with some dropping off flowers.
Cainan Treadway, 18, of Joshua, Texas, walked by Sparty early Tuesday afternoon while going for a walk from his dorm at Wonders Hall. He needed some fresh air after spending a large portion of Monday in his room with the door barricaded. At one point, through misinformation circulating campus, he thought the gunman was in his dorm.
Another students slammed his door and Treadway thought “I’m about to die.”
Grace Sobeck, who also lives in Landon Hall with her window faces the Union, had noise canceling headphones Monday evening and was talking to her boyfriend so she didn’t hear any shots. Her friend who was in the Union called her and told her about the shooting.
Living on Grand River, Sobeck said she’s pretty used to police sirens. But hearing them for 10 minutes straight freaked her out. She hid under her bed with her doors locked for about 30 minutes, until university police confirmed the shooting in an emergency text to the campus community. Then she barricaded her door and moved to her closet to get away from the windows.
When police came onto her floor, checking each room to make sure everyone was safe and to check for the suspect, she wasn’t sure at first if they were real, she said. She’d heard rumors the shooter was pretending to be a cop to get people to open their doors.
It was “kind of surreal” to see the officers at her door, some with long rifles, Sobeck said. “It very much felt like a movie,” she said.
As a resident assistant at Landon, Sobeck’s next concern after her safety was if all her residents were OK. She said her bosses and coworkers stayed in contact with her and provided information to keep calm.
But she still wondered: “How am I going to make them feel safe if I don’t feel safe?”
Sophomores Kali Keppler and Morgan Janke spent four hours hiding in the bathroom of their Holden Hall dormitory as the violence unfolded outside. They were scared.
“We just didn’t know what was real or where he was,” Keppler said. “It was just really scary. We were checking on our friends for four hours to make sure they were still alive. It was really scary.”
Keppler had trouble articulating her feelings Tuesday as she and Janke packed up a car to drive back to Howell, their shared hometown.
“I feel sad for everybody that lost their life last night,” she said, pausing amid tears. “Who has to die before something changes? It’s just frustrating.”
Janke agreed. Gun violence doesn’t have to be so commonplace, she said.
“If they could put gun reform or something up for (a ballot) vote, and people could vote on it, then maybe there could be change in this country,” Janke said. “Until then, it’s just going to keep happening.”
Keppler said she is driving home so she can be with her mom and the rest of her family.
“I mean, I don’t feel safe here,” she said.