As the number of mass shootings in America rises, it’s easy to become numb to the horrific stories of death and loss in the media. However, East students were recently forced to face the reality of gun violence when the threat entered their own community, taking away the life of one young professor and affecting many more.
On Aug. 28, the first day of school for Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools, admin received an alert of a dangerous armed person on UNC’s campus, only four miles away from East.
Oliver Levine, East alum and a sophomore at UNC, explained his experience that day.
“I was in Greenville Hall, which is right across the quad from where everything was happening,” Levine said. “I was in class with probably 25 other other kids, and an alert just popped up on the screen while the teacher was presenting… nobody knew what to do. So we just turned the lights off, shut the door.”
When the news reached East, students and admin were equally concerned.
“Chapel Hill Police have a thing called alert tones that come across our police radio when there is a major event,” said Officer Steve Sherwin, a School Resource Officer at East. “They gave a tone on the radio, and it said that UNC was responding to an active shooter on campus and calling for assistance from surrounding jurisdictions.”
Sherwin then relayed the information to Principal Jesse Casey, and together, they made the decision to go into secure mode.
“In this situation, the first thing is, okay, take a deep breath. You have to slow down and think what’s the first priority, and that’s where our students are and how we can keep them safe,” Casey said.
Many students were surprised by an act of gun violence so close to home.
“I haven’t heard of something like that happening around here before,” junior Hannah Engel said. “I never really considered it to be an issue in our community.”
As more details were released, the tragedy of the day became even more real. Associate professor Zijie Yan had been shot and killed in Caudill Labs on UNC’s campus. Over three hours after initial reports, Chapel Hill police caught and arrested the suspect, identified as Tailei Qui, a UNC graduate student.
Still rattled by the events of the 28th, many students were shocked when another alert was issued only two weeks later. This time, the threat was located in the UNC Student Union. A report of an armed and dangerous person had students searching yet again for answers. Laura Chekan, a sophomore at East with a sister at UNC, said this time was even scarier.
“I had heard the story of the first shooting, when my sister had to be crammed into a bathroom with the door locked. Ignorance was kind of bliss, I didn’t know what was happening the first time [with my sister], I was just hoping, oh she’s alright, she’s fine. But then hearing her perspective afterwards, then it happening again, picturing her like that was almost worse,” Chekan said.
To relive the events of just two weeks ago increased the gravity of the situation for many. University students, including Levine, were in the exact classrooms they had been in during the August shooting.
“Everybody was just like, ‘Oh my god, it’s happening again.’ People couldn’t believe it…. They thought it was a prank at first,” Levine said.
Unlike the circumstances Aug. 28, no bullets were shot Sept. 13, but the event still heightened stress for the community.
“It made me feel more aware, more scared to come to school. And when the second one happened, it was even scarier, no one thought it would happen again.” East freshman Tesla Goldstein said.
“I guess I was hoping that maybe it would get safer after the first incident. But yeah, it was frustrating and really sad,” said UNC senior Allie Schrieber.
In the wake of these events, residents felt a call to action and a need for reform. Protests were held the following weeks, including a walkout during UNC classes and a demonstration in front of the state legislative office in Raleigh.
These incidents, so close to home, raised questions and emotions for many people of the Triangle.
“You don’t expect it to happen to you. So when it does, what do you even do? What do you say?” Engel said.
Now more real than ever, these events opened many eyes to gun violence in America.
“It could have happened to me at my school,” Chekan said. “It made everything more personal, it could have been me, too. It’s happening to people that I know, it’s affecting everybody. I think I now understand it better and the rawness of it.”
With this new perspective at the forefront of student minds, change felt necessary for many.
“There are root causes to that that aren’t being addressed, like mental health… but nationally and at the state level, especially at the state level, we need to ban automatic weapons,” Engel said.
Further, Schrieber and many others hope for more awareness and preparedness in the future. To her, an important piece of student safety is “just being more aware of what to do in the event that this happens again.”
When asked about his hopes for safety at East in the future, Casey echoed student voices, saying “[I hope] to be as prepared as possible. And hopefully we can provide more mental health support so that we can address the things that are bothering people to the point of feeling like they have no other outlet than to do harmful things. I think ultimately, we need to bring more awareness to mental health.”
According to ABC News, there have been more mass shootings in America in 2023 than days. In the wake of recent events, this can no longer be only a statistic in the back of Chapel Hill’s minds.
“Now I realize that things like this can actually happen to you or somebody that you know, it’s not just in the news, it actually happens in real life, and it can happen to you,” freshman Olivia Park said.
Now, more than ever, Chapel Hill is looking straight on at a threat that was once only in their periphery.
“I think we just have to continue to keep the pressure going and continue to speak out and not normalize it because it just doesn’t feel normal to live like this,” says long-time Chapel Hill resident, Jessica Anderson. “I do have hope despite how frustrating it is. Kids just shouldn’t have to live like this.”
Photo by Clara Wolfe/The ECHO
