Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ. It
Speaker 1: is Tuesday, August twenty sixth. It is back to school time. Parents.
Speaker 1: A lot of us have dropped our kids off at
Speaker 1: college campuses across the country, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of high school students are already back in sessions. Some
Speaker 1: folks are getting ready to But this is a time
Speaker 1: of excitement. It's a time of joy, a little bit
Speaker 1: of anxiety as we leave our kids hopefully in safe hands,
Speaker 1: and a series of frightening events is taking place at
Speaker 1: college campuses across this country, and it's happening repeatedly and
Speaker 1: far too often. TJ. You and I both got phone
Speaker 1: calls yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we read a lot of news, and we stay
Speaker 2: up on a lot of news, and we've been informed
Speaker 2: plenty over the past week, really about active shooter incidents
Speaker 2: on several college campuses. We get those alerts from breaking
Speaker 2: news emails. We get them from watching the news, we
Speaker 2: get them from reading the news. We got these two
Speaker 2: from family members because our family members are in very
Speaker 2: close proximity to two college campuses where there were two
Speaker 2: active shooter hoaxes, one my alma mater. I don't have
Speaker 2: a family member enrolled, had niece and nephew in recent years,
Speaker 2: but my sister lives in that area, my niece and
Speaker 2: still lives up there. And of course at least a
Speaker 2: sophomore now at the University of Colorado who was just
Speaker 2: dropped off there officially by you last Thursday and Friday,
Speaker 2: so we aren't talking. Onto three days after you left
Speaker 2: her at Boulder, you get a message saying as an
Speaker 2: active shooter on her campus.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She started facetiming me and she was a little
Speaker 1: out of breath, and I didn't actually answer the FaceTime.
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of something. I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on, figuring she just wanted to ask me
Speaker 1: for money or something, and she said, this is serious, mom,
Speaker 1: can you call me? And she was worried, and I
Speaker 1: get it. I sat there and prepared her. You know,
Speaker 1: I get nervous about the Idaho murders. I talk about
Speaker 1: locking your doors and making sure that everyone's responsible about
Speaker 1: keeping the house secure, and everyone understands how important security is.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I didn't expect to get that call.
Speaker 2: At this point. Right. We talked about this last week,
Speaker 2: and if folks of you all have been keeping up,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know what to call it necessary
Speaker 2: a necessarily, it's not a rash anymore. It seems like
Speaker 2: it's gone beyond that. It's not quite an epidemic of it,
Speaker 2: but it is a trend. It is startling, and it
Speaker 2: is scary as hell. But we talked about it last week.
Speaker 2: Thursday was the first one we heard of. All of
Speaker 2: you all know Villanova, but Rose. We talked about it
Speaker 2: on our podcast and episodes in our morning runs, the
Speaker 2: news podcast that we do. We said, man, can you
Speaker 2: imagine how apparent a loved one would feel? Can you imagine, yes,
Speaker 2: everything's okay, but can you imagine you just dropped your
Speaker 2: kid off and left, and then you look on the news.
Speaker 2: It's the parent's worst nightmare, whether they're in elementary school,
Speaker 2: junior high, high school, college. We said, man, imagine how
Speaker 2: that feels for those parents, And then on Monday, you
Speaker 2: were the parent.
Speaker 1: I just got chills because I remember that conversation and
Speaker 1: trying to put myself in that position. I would say, thankfully,
Speaker 1: but maybe this is even scarily that because we had
Speaker 1: just been reporting on these hoaxes, I didn't get immediately alarmed,
Speaker 1: but had there not been a string of these I
Speaker 1: would have panicked immediately, and I should have regardless, because
Speaker 1: we don't know what's a hoax and what's not. And
Speaker 1: I think maybe that's the most frightening thing about all
Speaker 1: of this. You know, I didn't even know the term,
Speaker 1: and I guess I'm behind the times, but swatting, I
Speaker 1: actually asked you swatting. What's swatting? You know what?
Speaker 2: You'll remember, it wasn't college campuses that were initially targeted
Speaker 2: back in the day when this first started, and I
Speaker 2: think they charged and made examples out of some guys,
Speaker 2: but they were sending it to people's homes, wasn't it
Speaker 2: these jerks that were involved in like online gaming.
Speaker 1: Look, it started back in twenty ten, and they were
Speaker 1: targeting celebrities, they were targeting politicians, and then as recently
Speaker 1: as last year, do you remember the long string of
Speaker 1: swatting incidents. One teenager was involved in historically black colleges
Speaker 1: and going after certain specific types of campuses, and he
Speaker 1: was charged with making It was a dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: of these hoax false alarms that people took seriously, because
Speaker 1: of course you would, you have to these days. So swatting, technically,
Speaker 1: this is the definition, it's the deliberate practice of making
Speaker 1: a false report to police to summon law enforcement who
Speaker 1: believe a mass shooting, a hostage situation, or a bombing
Speaker 1: is taking place, therefore calling in the swat team. So
Speaker 1: you're swatting your community.
Speaker 2: They did this to it was it was gamers who
Speaker 2: are actually online playing against each other. They get into
Speaker 2: some kind of beef and one of them would call
Speaker 2: and swat the other persons. And there was video of these,
Speaker 2: like the guys would be in the middle of a
Speaker 2: game and all of a sudden, the swat team is
Speaker 2: busting in and they, yes, they made some arrests in
Speaker 2: that case. So swatting necessarily folks, it's you've heard of.
Speaker 2: It is not necessarily new. But this string and this
Speaker 2: this latest string of them happening on college campuses, and
Speaker 2: you send a whole community running, tens of thousands of kids.
Speaker 2: And on top of all this roades, yesterday was the
Speaker 2: first day of classes.
Speaker 1: For a lot of no it's you know, it just
Speaker 1: breaks my heart, and all of these calls that started
Speaker 1: on Thursday. We don't know if one person's involved, if
Speaker 1: multiple people are involved, whoever is responsible for some or
Speaker 1: all of these has not been caught yet, but these
Speaker 1: calls all have eerily similar trademarks. It's almost as if
Speaker 1: they're following a script.
Speaker 2: You no, I didn't think about that until you just said,
Speaker 2: what if there is one person? It's cool for all
Speaker 2: of these. It's not a copycat situation.
Speaker 1: You think about that. They call in and it's a
Speaker 1: male voice, that's what has been reported, and they say
Speaker 1: that a male Sometimes they say a white male with
Speaker 1: an AR fifteen style rifle shot x amount of people,
Speaker 1: or is shooting people right now, And a lot of
Speaker 1: these they specifically reference the campus library, the school library.
Speaker 1: So you again, it started on Thursday, Villanova active shooter
Speaker 1: on campus, shots fired in the law school. That was
Speaker 1: on Thursday. Villanova then also had a second scare on Sunday.
Speaker 1: The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had a call on
Speaker 1: Thursday as well. More than one hundred officers responded because
Speaker 1: they have to, because they have to assume the worst.
Speaker 2: These were hours away. So this is what started, all right,
Speaker 2: Villanova and you tea Chatnua. Yes, the one of Villanova
Speaker 2: got a lot more attention. Is a much bigger school,
Speaker 2: more well known school, if you will, offish to the
Speaker 2: folks at Chattanooga, but they that was new student orientation.
Speaker 2: They were just kids.
Speaker 1: Running freshman orientation.
Speaker 2: Parent there were a bunch of families on campus still,
Speaker 2: and this is how you start your college experience. So
Speaker 2: that got so much attention. Chattanooga didn't get as much.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they went through hell same day hours apart
Speaker 2: these two incidents. So we all looked and thought, well, hell,
Speaker 2: so I'm the idiot, all right, let's move on with
Speaker 2: our day. And then Sunday happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Sunday happens. The University of South Carolina
Speaker 1: two separate reports of an active shooter on campus. Both
Speaker 1: were made by they believe police believe it was the
Speaker 1: same person, the same male voice. They said it was
Speaker 1: similar that included background noise and mimicked gunfire. So they
Speaker 1: actually whoever this was up the ante and made it
Speaker 1: feel and seem even more real. And look, can you
Speaker 1: imagine you're a you're a student on campus and you
Speaker 1: get an alert on your phone that says, run, hide,
Speaker 1: fight an active shooter. So there are reports of students
Speaker 1: just it's heartbreaking, running, barricading themselves, locking themselves in bathrooms,
Speaker 1: hiding under desks, running for their lives, sheltering in place, sobbing,
Speaker 1: sending desperate texts and phone calls to their parents.
Speaker 2: I mean, you think you're gonna die, all real, You're
Speaker 2: think you're gonna somebody's making a joke in a room somewhere,
Speaker 2: somebody might actually be laughing at what they're doing. But literally,
Speaker 2: people thinking they might die discus on the first day
Speaker 2: of college, for God's sake.
Speaker 1: So yeah, exactly, You're you're you're you're already nervous and anxious.
Speaker 1: You're leaving your family for the first time, you're starting
Speaker 1: off this whole new part of your life, you're adulting
Speaker 1: for the first time. And this the worst case scenario happens.
Speaker 1: So that's Thursday. We've had two. Sunday we had two.
Speaker 1: Then Yesterday Monday, six more swatting calls University of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: This was significant, babe. They actually they actually took the
Speaker 1: most dramatic response. They canceled classes at the University of
Speaker 1: Arkansas on day By the way, yes, public schools also
Speaker 1: locked down a car and they got multiple calls about
Speaker 1: an active shooter once again at the library. But then
Speaker 1: they got other calls that made them end up they
Speaker 1: ended up having to search and go through room by room,
Speaker 1: floor by floor of seven separate buildings on University of
Speaker 1: Arkansas campus in Faetteville.
Speaker 2: I think about it, how you're how Analys called you, right,
Speaker 2: she immediately reached out to you, said something was going on,
Speaker 2: and so what happens. Imagine the chaos. There are some
Speaker 2: parents who wouldn't just talk through with the cop. They'll
Speaker 2: hang up and call cops. Yes, and that is what
Speaker 2: was happening at the University of Arkansas. There was such
Speaker 2: chaos that even though there was no shooter, words starts
Speaker 2: trickling around. Now somebody hears a door slam where they
Speaker 2: see other people running, or it's this building, it's that building.
Speaker 2: I thought I saw something. All these calls start coming
Speaker 2: in and it's chaos. So it takes them hours to
Speaker 2: just say hey, everything's a okay. And then hey, this
Speaker 2: was a joke. I hate using the word joke, but
Speaker 2: somebody did this as a hoax, and that's what that means.
Speaker 2: And to think we rose how many times we said it.
Speaker 2: There's something unique about a campus community, school community, high
Speaker 2: school community. Yeah, it's all, but there's something unique about
Speaker 2: a campus community because it sometimes they feel like they're
Speaker 2: more a representation of a It's not just happening to
Speaker 2: black folks or white folks, Hispanic folks. Of this, like,
Speaker 2: a campus community is more of a whole than a
Speaker 2: lot of ways I would argue in a community than
Speaker 2: I think the country or a city or a state.
Speaker 1: We keep going back. We're going back to the University
Speaker 1: of Arkansas campus this fall, We're going back to Georgia.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, you keep coming.
Speaker 2: Back and doing something like this. It shakes the hell
Speaker 2: out of a campus community. And we have been to
Speaker 2: enough campuses and school campuses after a shooting and see
Speaker 2: what that does to people. And even though nobody got hurt,
Speaker 2: nobody got shot, they are shook.
Speaker 1: Yeah they are again. So I like, I was just
Speaker 1: actually reading what was being sent out to students and
Speaker 1: imagining how that must felt. So I said, South Carolina
Speaker 1: their text, Oh no, the University of Tennessee was run, Hide, fight.
Speaker 1: The University of Arkansas sent out avoid, deny, defend. So
Speaker 1: you know, each campus has these instructions to students in
Speaker 1: case they encounter the shooter or in case they're in
Speaker 1: an unsafe place. Here's what you should do. Avoid, deny, defend.
Speaker 1: That is what the University of Arkansas sent students on
Speaker 1: the first day of school. You get that text. I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine.
Speaker 2: I'm more partial to run, hide, fight. You get the idea.
Speaker 2: They started doing this years ago because they have to.
Speaker 2: If you need to get a message out and you
Speaker 2: can't say, hey, you need to stay away from the
Speaker 2: library because some one's on we got a report about that.
Speaker 2: You need to tell people. This is what you gotta
Speaker 2: do right now. You need to run to get away
Speaker 2: from danger. That is option one. Then they tell you, well,
Speaker 2: if you're not able to run, option two is hide.
Speaker 2: If you're not able to do that, your last resort
Speaker 2: is to fight and defend your life. And that is
Speaker 2: a unfortunately we have to use it, but that one works. Run, hide, fight.
Speaker 2: You know what that means. Yeah, you don't need nothing
Speaker 2: else needs to be explained in order that is.
Speaker 1: What you should do. Iowa State University two false reports
Speaker 1: of an active shooter at the library and then another
Speaker 1: incident they claimed at the dormitory, one of the dormitories,
Speaker 1: one of the residents halls. So that was at Iowa
Speaker 1: State University on Monday. Kansas State University, they also had
Speaker 1: a call of an active shooter at the campus library.
Speaker 1: University of New Hampshire got a scary phone call, shots
Speaker 1: fired campus library, so they know they're getting to call.
Speaker 1: Shots have been fired. Northern Arizona University police were told
Speaker 1: there was an active shooter again at the campus library.
Speaker 1: And then the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I got
Speaker 1: this call from Annalys. We were at dinner. It was
Speaker 1: five pm in Boulder, Colorado, there were reports of an
Speaker 1: active shooter at the campus library, which Annie and I
Speaker 1: have been to multiple times the old The only reason
Speaker 1: why I think I wasn't as panicked was because she
Speaker 1: had already finished classes for the day and she was
Speaker 1: back at her house, which is just shy of campus.
Speaker 1: I mean, she is across the street from campus, but
Speaker 1: I knew she wasn't in class. But her really good
Speaker 1: friend Jenna was in class when it happened, and so
Speaker 1: she told me. Jenna talked about the panic people running
Speaker 1: from the classrooms, people literally hysterically trying to get out
Speaker 1: of harm's way, and it just was so sad to
Speaker 1: think about this beautiful campus thrown into such chaos.
Speaker 2: This is the same campus nearby not too long ago
Speaker 2: that had an incident with the anti Semitic attack there.
Speaker 2: So again you've been out. Bolder Boulder is as chill
Speaker 2: as it gets.
Speaker 1: Yes, town, rocky mountains, gorgeous scenery, this beautiful little college
Speaker 1: campus with shops and restaurants. It is idyllic.
Speaker 2: This is fear. This is trauma. But you just mentioned
Speaker 2: something about how you were. You knew she wasn't on camp,
Speaker 2: so you had a little relief, yes, And therein lies
Speaker 2: the problem because part of your relief as well is
Speaker 2: because you've been covering for the past several days that
Speaker 2: there have been a number of hoaxes. Yes, that's in
Speaker 2: the back of our mind, and that is the problem
Speaker 2: because in two weeks, in three weeks, in a month
Speaker 2: and six months, who knows when that there's a possibility
Speaker 2: that somebody for real is going to step onto a
Speaker 2: campus and try to do harm and try to shoot
Speaker 2: a place up, and that call is going to go
Speaker 2: in to nine one one, and the students are going
Speaker 2: to look at their phones and see it. You know
Speaker 2: what they're gonna do is roll their eyes and they're
Speaker 2: gonna even if they hesitate for half a step, that
Speaker 2: could be life and death. That is what this is
Speaker 2: doing the boy who Cried Wolf? What age were we
Speaker 2: when we learned that man? And so now here we
Speaker 2: go another one. Ah, that's another one. Ah, it's another one. Ah,
Speaker 2: it's another one. You talk about the hurricanes all the time.
Speaker 2: Some people don't leave because, Ah, we've been through this before.
Speaker 1: It misses us every time. What are the chances this
Speaker 1: actually is going to hit, that is.
Speaker 2: Going to possibly what we're seeing ropes cost somebody harm
Speaker 2: or death because what's happening right now and somebody just
Speaker 2: hesitates half a step when they need to be haul
Speaker 2: and ass and this thing has messed us all up.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is one serious consequence of all of this.
Speaker 1: There are also plenty of other financial consequences, and there
Speaker 1: are other issues that involve life or death because of
Speaker 1: these just egregious, horrific, and unfortunately now repeated hoaxes that
Speaker 1: we are seeing across this country. Welcome back to this
Speaker 1: edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about
Speaker 1: these series of very serious, very consequential hoaxes that are
Speaker 1: plaguing college campuses across our country in the past few days.
Speaker 1: This has been personal for TJ and me because it
Speaker 1: has hit very close to home. People we love were scared.
Speaker 1: People we loved were afraid, and frankly, we all should
Speaker 1: be concerned because this technology that's out there for someone
Speaker 1: or several people to pull off these elaborate hoaxes is
Speaker 1: growing voice over Internet Protocol services, that's what it's called.
Speaker 1: But it makes these hoaxes more elaborate, and it makes
Speaker 1: them so that the people who are committing these crimes
Speaker 1: or the person very difficult to catch because it's these
Speaker 1: false numbers that can just generate phone calls. You can
Speaker 1: change the quality of your voice, you can add background noise.
Speaker 1: One of these callers into one of these universities, I
Speaker 1: believe it was the University of Tennessee Chattanooga actually had
Speaker 1: gun fire in the background to make it seem more real.
Speaker 1: The technology is getting better and that makes these hoaxes scarier.
Speaker 2: And look, I mean we talk about VoIP voice over
Speaker 2: Internet protocol, but I mean a burner foam might be
Speaker 2: simple as enough. And we're speaking on this and some
Speaker 2: authorities have spoken on this particular thing, and so we're
Speaker 2: not revealing any secrets necessarily with this. But how do
Speaker 2: you catch these folks? And I'm not sure what the
Speaker 2: penalties are, but I think they are severe. They have
Speaker 2: made them more severe over the years. Is it anything
Speaker 2: other than you know what I thought about schudeur Sanders.
Speaker 2: You remember that prank that somebody played during the Terrible
Speaker 2: and it turned out to be the son of a
Speaker 2: coach sitting in a room thinking he's doing no harm,
Speaker 2: Thinking he's doing no harm. This is funny to me?
Speaker 2: Is someone you could be? Is someone just an idiot
Speaker 2: out there thinking this is funny? A couple kids in
Speaker 2: a room thinking this is funny. It's possible, But how nefarious?
Speaker 2: How troubled are the people making these calls? I don't
Speaker 2: know what to I was even debated in Robes. We
Speaker 2: were debating should we even be doing this story.
Speaker 1: We've had that conversation because look, as we covered in
Speaker 1: the national media more and more of these school shootings,
Speaker 1: the decision was ultimately made by the newsrooms we worked
Speaker 1: in to one time, like the first day, acknowledge who
Speaker 1: the shooter is, but never say his name again. And
Speaker 1: that was to make sure that we didn't give anyone
Speaker 1: else an idea to become famous or infamous, notorious by
Speaker 1: having their name live on because they are the shooter.
Speaker 1: So we made a point not to give any glory
Speaker 1: so to speak, or attention to the people behind the shooting.
Speaker 1: And we really did have that conversation like should we
Speaker 1: be covering this because we know copycats exist and if
Speaker 1: this is one person who keeps doing it over and
Speaker 1: over again or a small group of people, they're going
Speaker 1: to be fueled by the fame. They're going to be
Speaker 1: excited by the attention. Unfortunately, that is possibly and probably
Speaker 1: what these people are looking for.
Speaker 2: They get off on looking at the television and go wow,
Speaker 2: I did that.
Speaker 1: Yep, and that's just and that's scary because that means
Speaker 1: it's only going to get worse. And look, when we
Speaker 1: talk about the damage done, yes, there is signal, magnificant
Speaker 1: emotional trauma done to anyone who is sitting in a
Speaker 1: classroom and who has gone through these drills in high school.
Speaker 1: Because yes, unfortunately, our kids have lived through this era
Speaker 1: where they have had to learn how to handle a
Speaker 1: potential mass shooting in a classroom setting. So they're on
Speaker 1: edge already in a way that we never had to
Speaker 1: be because they've been exposed to this. So now they're
Speaker 1: extra traumatized when the worst case scenario they think is
Speaker 1: happening in real time. But even worse, You've got now
Speaker 1: think about this, hundreds of police officers, fire officials, emergency
Speaker 1: medical EMT teams, everyone rushing to one area. Heaven forbid,
Speaker 1: those resources are needed somewhere else. Someone has a heart attack,
Speaker 1: there's a horrific car accident, there's whatever trauma that happens
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, And some of these small communities
Speaker 1: don't have emergency personnel to spare. Now they are diverted
Speaker 1: to something that is non existent. Someone could die, who
Speaker 1: act actually needs help because the resources they need are
Speaker 1: somewhere else, trying to help out a situation that doesn't
Speaker 1: even exist.
Speaker 2: Uh, you said they don't have resources to spare. That
Speaker 2: includes money. All this costs the University of Arkansas Fayetteville,
Speaker 2: the response it takes. You're not just bringing in all
Speaker 2: the guys who are on duty at the time, but
Speaker 2: the time it takes, the overtime. All these things cost
Speaker 2: money for these extra bodies. And I know it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like much of a deal. Every time you see
Speaker 2: a police officer show up, Yeah, he just shows up.
Speaker 2: You're a taxpayer. But this drains folks in certainly smaller communities. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Chattanooga you think they're a wash in dough for their
Speaker 2: law enforcement. Oh, this is horrific, tough, hope it stops.
Speaker 2: I was looking. I did a good look before we started.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you did too, to make sure there wasn't
Speaker 2: another one today.
Speaker 1: Right, I know, I mean fingers crossed. It hasn't happened yet,
Speaker 1: but you think about how like I know you probably
Speaker 1: looked to two Bay. But the amount of incidents that
Speaker 1: are happening, it's escalating in a very disturbing way. So
Speaker 1: estimated swatting incidents jumped from four hundred in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: I think that's when they first started seeing it, right
Speaker 1: around two thousand. I think that maybe the first one
Speaker 1: was in two thousand and eight, but they started to
Speaker 1: see them en mass in twenty eleven. It jumped to
Speaker 1: one thousand incidents in twenty nineteen, and then just last year,
Speaker 1: from January twenty twenty three to January twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: there were eight hundred incidents recorded at elementary, middle and
Speaker 1: high schools. So it's just it's rapidly increasing in a
Speaker 1: significant way. And now this year we're seeing what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: Last year that California teenager admitted to making hundreds of
Speaker 1: swatting calls targeting historically black colleges, high schools, FBI agents,
Speaker 1: a Florida mosque. He admitted to doing it and was
Speaker 1: able to do it in a large quantity with one person.
Speaker 1: That's all. It took. One seventeen year old out of
Speaker 1: California created all this havoc, made over one hundred phone
Speaker 1: calls and scared the heck out of everybody. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if that is what, perhaps is a copycat
Speaker 1: or what triggering this new round of swatting, But God,
Speaker 1: I hope they find out whoever did this, or whoever
Speaker 1: is responsible, or however many people are responsible.
Speaker 2: They need to find them, make an example, throw the
Speaker 2: book at them, and then that's will discourage others from
Speaker 2: doing it in the future. And maybe that's all. Look, thankfully,
Speaker 2: and I haven't seen Make sure you have either not
Speaker 2: a single injury necessarily involved, not yet in any of
Speaker 2: these what somebody is could potentially get hurt just running away. Hell,
Speaker 2: a heart attack from somebody in a stressful situation. So
Speaker 2: that hasn't happened yet, and that's a blessing. But hopefully
Speaker 2: this is just a weird stretch of things that have happened,
Speaker 2: and again, we would we have done. I don't know
Speaker 2: what are the chances. Right on the same day, within hours,
Speaker 2: we are getting alerts from our loved ones who are
Speaker 2: near these campuses saying, hey, guys, this is going on.
Speaker 2: So it's tough. I remember this, and I cannot remember. Believe.
Speaker 2: I believe it's a twenty fifth anniversary University of Arkansas,
Speaker 2: the twenty fifth anniversary to almost the day of a
Speaker 2: shooting on campus in which a student shot and killed
Speaker 2: a professor at Kemple Hall that you have been in
Speaker 2: where the jursal lives in the department is. This is
Speaker 2: a campus. It happens every now and but this is
Speaker 2: a campus that has been shaken by violence and death before.
Speaker 2: And I always remember when it was because it was
Speaker 2: a year after I graduated, so I know it was
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago August I think twenty ninth, two thousand.
Speaker 2: I know this off the top of my head. Wow,
Speaker 2: But it that I was off campus by a year
Speaker 2: I graduated. But I, as I'm sitting here looking at you,
Speaker 2: didn't think about it. I was shaken enough that I
Speaker 2: know the date and I could probably walk you right
Speaker 2: to the room where it happened, because I remember a
Speaker 2: professor there in the journalist's apartment. It was a doctoral
Speaker 2: student shot and killed him in his office on campus,
Speaker 2: right there in the building you have been in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this stuff stays with you. And if that's not an
Speaker 2: indication of it, does this stuck with me? And I
Speaker 2: didn't think about it.
Speaker 1: And you weren't even there when it happened.
Speaker 2: No, I graduated a year later.
Speaker 1: But it was a building you knew, in a school
Speaker 1: you loved, on a campus that you call home.
Speaker 2: And that stuff just it doesn't go away. We were
Speaker 2: on the campus of Virginia Tech. You'll never forget that one.
Speaker 2: I think that's the worst still in this country's history.
Speaker 2: Universities have had shootings. The worst we've seen though at school,
Speaker 2: elementary schools, high schools really in this country. So I
Speaker 2: know we've seen Virginia Tech. But still something about us,
Speaker 2: we're still kind of programmed to not necessarily it's a
Speaker 2: one off, Right, Virginia Tech was what year, It.
Speaker 1: Was a long time ago. It was that long ago.
Speaker 2: It was so long ago. But you remember, you've all
Speaker 2: never forget ever, Right, Parkland, all these things at some
Speaker 2: smaller school just when it's happening on a college campus,
Speaker 2: we're paying attention in a different way. So yeah, this
Speaker 2: is just it. We've been rattled, and we rattled now
Speaker 2: and thankfully everybody's okay. It was just to think that
Speaker 2: somebody might be having fun with this when that parent
Speaker 2: like you, it's terrified, but it's fun to this somebody
Speaker 2: sitting in a room laughing. When a parent like you
Speaker 2: and so many others are freaked out that their kid's
Speaker 2: life is in danger and somebody might be sitting around laughing.
Speaker 1: With us, It's sickening. There's no other way to put it.
Speaker 1: And yes, we were personally touched by this yesterday and
Speaker 1: wanted to just talk it through with everyone and recognize
Speaker 1: that while we obviously can view any of these news
Speaker 1: reports within the perspective that there have been a series
Speaker 1: of hoaxes, but also keeping our guards up and keeping
Speaker 1: our our children alert and making sure that we have
Speaker 1: at least communication like this is a chance for you
Speaker 1: to talk to your kids, chance to talk to your
Speaker 1: student about what if the worst case scenario happens, have
Speaker 1: a plan, let them know what they should do. Have
Speaker 1: that conversation just in case, not to scare them. But
Speaker 1: to prepare them. And it's tough that we live in
Speaker 1: these times, but we do, unfortunately, and we hope this
Speaker 1: comes to an end, and we certainly hope they find
Speaker 1: out who is responsible for these series of squatting hoax
Speaker 1: phone calls because they have real consequences. Thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening to us today. I'm Amy Robach alongside my
Speaker 1: partner TJ. Holmes. Have a great day, everybody,