I attended the University of Arizona from 2021-23. Like many students, I walked thousands of steps around campus every day. Although the school’s administration has done a fair job of promoting student safety, I don’t believe they’ve done enough to ensure that real safety is a reality.
It seems like every year, there’s a tragic death on campus. In 2021, a student was shot and killed in a campus parking garage.
In 2022, I had an early class and decided to get some food from the Student Union. I received a text message from the UAlert system that a young male with a gun had just assaulted someone on campus. Because the location was on the opposite end of campus, I continued with my day. I went outside to eat my breakfast at a table, close to where many other students were sitting.
Then the alert system gave the suspect’s description: white shirt, black jeans, early 20s. I looked up to see him just a couple of feet from me. He asked another girl for a phone charger, which she let him keep, and then locked eyes with me.
He sat down right across from me. Our interaction was short, and I remained calm. Cops on motorcycles circled the Union slowly, passing right by us, unaware the man they were looking for was right in front of them.
Once the suspect noticed the officers, he ran down the stairs into the Union as they chased him. A shot rang out, and I noticed something unsettling: not one student reacted. It was just another day on campus, seeing officers responding to yet another call, and witnessing the chaos. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, but I always wonder what could have happened if it were someone else instead of me.
Two months later, I was in my sorority house when friends rushed in to inform us that someone had walked into a classroom a block away and opened fire on a professor. Dr. Thomas Meixner was shot and killed in front of his students, some of whom were my friends.
That September, there was a shooting involving multiple students on the rooftop of my off-campus apartment. I remember seeing blood stains on the ground in the lobby and in the elevators as I headed to class the next morning.
Just this August, a girl was stabbed 17 times in the university library.
No student should encounter any of this. No student should walk on campus in fear of being killed, whether it’s being shot in broad daylight or involved in a hit-and-run.
Tragedy after tragedy is the norm now, with nothing to stop it from happening. The drills I have been through my entire life helped me stay calm while face to face with a shooting suspect, but I shouldn’t have been in a situation like that in the first place.
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