Some students hid, others played dead but some were not so lucky. And after police killed the gunman in a shootout a community was left counting the cost
Umpqua Community College freshman Alicia Sparks held a candle and clutched her partner close as she recalled the horrifying ordeal that unfolded just hours earlier.
“I was in the science hall which is right next to Snyder … and everybody heard something, but wasn’t sure what it was,” Sparks told the Guardian. “And then we got an email that there was a possible shooter on campus.”
The 18-year-old student was speaking at a vigil just a few miles away from the site of the horrific mass shooting inside the small community college in Roseburg, Oregon, which took place on Thursday morning.
Sparks and her classmates had waited in the center of the windowless hall, next to the Snyder building where at least nine were killed and seven injured. The campus was placed on lockdown.
UCC physics major Mark Hamill was in the gym during the shooting.
“I went over to the office to ask the officials there: ‘Is this for real? Is there really an active shooter?’ Then, when I walked out … I heard three, four, five shots. Sounds like firecrackers,” Hamill said.
Hamill stayed hidden in the gym with his classmates, in the dark, behind closed doors.
Eventually both Sparks and Hamill were found by police and escorted from campus to safety. They were among the lucky ones.
Insider the Snyder building, home to a mix of English and science classes at the mostly adult learning college that has just a few hundred full-time students, it was a scene of chaos and carnage.
Read more;
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/02/oregon-shooting-dozen-minutes-chaos-classroom
