In this moment, I can feel sadness and anger flowing through my blood. It takes a lot to get me to this place, but yet again, the United States can’t seem to get their act together.
This evening at 10:56 PM I opened a Snapchat video from my friend who is a student at the University of Utah, expecting it to be some rant about a suitemate or some boy drama. When I opened it, it turned out she was under lockdown because there has been yet another school shooting. She had been outside walking and there had been lots of police officers and text messages from the UOU telling the students to take shelter because there was a shooting suspect still on foot. She went back to her dorm and stayed there with her roommates, shaken and terrified. She sent me a message:
“It’s okay. Like. Real life. Is just. Happening.”
My thoughts go out to the woman shot outside the dorms on campus and her family. My love to the students who had to endure the frightening reality of being under lockdown, as no one should ever experienced that. The police on campus have the situation under control as of now.
The University of Utah has experienced this before, when Austin Boutain killed Chenwei Guo while he was in a car.
This pattern of shooting is modifying, debilitating, and something that should simply not ever occur. My thoughts and love go out to those affected by this current situation and the past shooting. This pattern, this horrible, devastating pattern of innocent people dying needs to stop. The current suspect, Melvin Rowland, a registered sex offender, “convicted of attempted forcible sex abuse, and enticing a minor over the internet in 2004” (Salt Lake Tribune), should not have access to a gun. End of story.
Sources:
https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/shooting-reported-on-the-universi…
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/10/23/breaking-shooting/
http://time.com/5431648/university-of-utah-shooting/