Illinois State University students grappled Monday with the aftermath of a second shooting on or very near campus this school year. Classes resumed, but some said they were left feeling uneasy.
Aniyah Weddington, a junior psychology major, was at the Bone when Sunday’s shooting happened outside a student group's event. Weddington was there for the event – a new-member presentation for an ISU sorority in the Bone’s Brown Ballroom. One of her sisters said she heard gunshots, then people started to evacuate.
“Chairs were trampled over. People were trampled over. People got hurt. Scratched, scraped,” said Weddington. “There were parents, grandparents, children there. It was honestly very scary.”
Weddington is vice president for the Black Student Union [BSU], which held an event on ISU’s Schroeder Plaza near the Bone on Monday – one sign that students were trying to continue on. ISU President Aondover Tarhule was also seen on the plaza mingling with students.
“I hope that they catch the right person who did this,” said Kyndia Motley, a junior communication sciences and disorders major who is president of the BSU.
Police are still looking for the shooter. One person (who was not a student) was injured but is expected to survive.
Motley and Weddington said they share a concern about how the incident will affect ISU’s Black students.
“This will affect the students here on campus. We will have to pay and will be held accountable for someone who is likely not a student here. And we hope that our Black men on this campus do not get profiled. The [suspect] description is very vague. This is challenging, and I hope this doesn’t ruin anything for anybody in the future,” Motley said.
“Each time there’s always the ignorant few who are ready ASAP to group all of us together in a bubble for one person’s actions,” she added. “We already have historically a prejudice against us already, and I just think these moments — let me be clear: Anyone, any race can do this – but it is unfortunate when it happens. It really is a big lie, cause it’s like expected, in a way. Stereotypically.”
Big events like Sunday’s are important, Motley said, in part to help introduce new people to ISU who may someday attend or send a child here. But she’s noticed a pattern around big-event weekends. The previous shooting happened Sept. 29 during ISU’s homecoming weekend. One person was killed and another injured in that incident.
“I don’t know how to fix that. But I just hope the campus understands it’s not a reflection of us students. It’s just a rotten one in the bunch,” Motley said.
ISU’s Emergency Alerts
Many students first heard about Sunday's shooting through ISU's Emergency Alert communication system. Motley and Weddington said they thought those alerts worked well. Other students told WGLT those alerts were timely but not detailed enough in the immediate aftermath.
“It was just kind of, there were shots, we don't know anything else,” said Leslie Guzman, a freshman from the Chicago suburb of Bartlett, about the information within ISU Emergency Alert emails and text messages.
The first emergency alert was issued around 7:55 p.m. Sunday, about 15 minutes after the shooting happened.
“I think the precautions of what to do in the situation should be more well known, like I wish that was in the emails more, because my friend was at the library, as it happened, she had no clue what to do,” said Haleigh Rienks, freshman from Chicago. “It just said, like, oh, just stay put or something. But it's also like, it needs to be more known. Should she have stayed there? Then the cops came. They kicked them out. They didn't tell them where to go or anything.”
Aaron Woodruff, the ISU police chief, told WGLT it’s a balancing act getting information to the public while dealing with an emergency.
During Sunday's shooting, one dispatcher was collecting and sorting information from Bloomington and Normal police and fire, State Police, the McLean County sheriff's department and the state's attorney's office.
“It does take a few minutes to collect that,” he said. “After that, the university is trying to put out some updated messages every few minutes. But there’s a lot to sort through during that first 30 minutes to an hour.”
Woodruff encourages people to seek trusted sources of information like ISU's website and social media pages. He says to avoid rumors on social media or flooding the department with phone calls requesting information during an active threat.
“We’re sharing information as we can, as it becomes available, and we’re trying to verify that information and make sure it’s credible. We don’t want people going on Yik Yak and other social media and spreading false rumors because that can lead to, one, wasted resources as we’re chasing those things down, but also it’s making other people anxious when they might not need to be," Woodruff said.
The ISU Quad was still relatively busy as classes were not cancelled Monday.
“I think that it's a safe campus, but still, like I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about, you know, just like my overall safety as a student,” said Elena Labuda, freshman from Lake Zurich.
ISU Emergency Alerts are sent to students, faculty and staff. Parents and community members can also sign up for the service.
“I got immediate texts from my mom and my grandma, and they were sending me all the notifications that they saw on Facebook and stuff,” said Addi Guerra, freshman from Morton.
Students, faculty and staff have been advised of counseling and mental-health services available to them if they should need it.
Family reactions
Parents and other family members are also processing what happened.
Melissa Evans of Normal has put four children through ISU, including current students. She considers herself fortunate to be only a few minutes away from her kids ‒ not a few hours.
“You will analyze moments like that for the rest of your life,” Evans said. “But the questions are how we learn how to be smarter and safer and better, and that’s all there is to it.”
Evans has been through something like this before. Her kids were students at Normal Community High School in 2012 when a 14-year-old student fired multiple shots into the ceiling and briefly detained several classmates. No one was injured, but the trauma of that day lingers. Evans also lost a relative in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech.
Evans is a member of a Facebook group for ISU parents and families. She shared a calming post Monday morning hoping to reassure fellow parents and reminding them that Bloomington-Normal is generally a safe, low-crime community ‒ and that well-trained first responders are ready when a crisis hits. She preaches preparedness.
“I do know what it’s like to be a parent who gets that call, to be a family member who has somebody they need to locate,” Evans said. “Everybody’s complaining. Everybody’s saying, ‘They should, they should, they should.’ You can ‘should’ yourself all day long. ... But at the end of the day, you try to be smart, you try to be mindful, you try to be considerate, and think about your surroundings. Know where you are. Have an exit plan.”
