Amid the scores of fearful and nervous college students following Saturday’s capturing at Brown College had been two who’ve been right here earlier than.
Mia Tretta, 21, was shot following the 2019 mass capturing at Saugus Excessive College, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. A 16-year-old boy carried out that assault, killing two, together with Tretta’s finest good friend, and injuring three earlier than fatally capturing himself.
Zoe Weissman, 20, attended Westglades Center College, adjoining to Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College in Parkland, Florida, when a former scholar opened fireplace on the latter, killing 17 in 2018.
Comply with dwell updates right here
Neither Tretta nor Weissman anticipated to expertise a mass capturing once more.
“Nobody on this nation even assumes it’s going to occur to them,” Tretta mentioned. “As soon as it occurs to you, you assume or are advised it should by no means occur once more, and clearly that’s not the case.”
At Brown on Saturday, an unidentified gunman killed two college students and injured one other 9 earlier than fleeing. He stays at giant.
Weissman mentioned she was at her dorm when a good friend known as to say college students had been operating away from a campus constructing and a capturing was seemingly underway.
She stayed put and mentioned she has remained at her dorm room since she first heard the information.
“At first, I used to be panicked,” Weissman, a sophomore pre-med scholar, mentioned in a telephone interview. “As soon as I knew a bit extra and I didn’t really feel there was imminent hazard, I felt numb — precisely how I did once I was 12.”
Tretta, a junior, mentioned she selected Brown as a result of she believed its smaller measurement would translate to larger security. However the trauma of her harm adopted her to Brown even earlier than Saturday’s assault. She mentioned she will’t enter a library on campus alone for concern that one other capturing may occur.
Each college students have turned concern into anger and are outspoken about gun violence.
Weissman has change into an activist calling for larger gun regulation. When she was 16, she was president of March for Our Lives in Parkland, a chapter of the group co-founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College capturing survivor David Hogg.
“I’m offended that I assumed I’d by no means should take care of this once more, and right here I’m eight years later,” Weissman mentioned.
Weissman mentioned the activism helps her heal, and her expertise attracts consideration to gun regulation.
“I feel the very fact that is my second capturing may be very impactful for folks,” she mentioned. “When folks put a face to one thing, they care much more.”
Tretta mentioned the day she was shot in 2019 modified her life without end.
“I’ve not been the identical particular person I used to be that day ever once more,” she mentioned, “and I assume it received’t be any completely different for the scholars at Brown.”
[/gpt3]
