UNITED STATES
She survived a high school shooting, but the nightmare wasn’t over
Fourteen months after losing four comrades in a massacre, Emma had a terrible feeling of déjà vu on Monday at Michigan State University.
Posted
Emma Riddle asks the US government to show “common sense”.
DR
Emma Riddle was taking a shower in her accommodation at Michigan State University when someone came knocking on her door Monday. “I shouted: leave me, I’m washing my hair!” says the 18-year-old student. “No, Emma, there is an active shooter on campusreplied the female voice. A terrible feeling of deja vu invaded the young woman, and for good reason: barely 14 months earlier, she had survived a shooting that left four dead in his high school.
It is therefore with a certain feeling of fatalism that she received, by SMS, the instructions of the university adviser. “He told us to barricade the doors, turn off the lights and move away from the windows,” says the student. Emma used a chest of drawers to block the door and hid under her desk, says MLive. There, she called and wrote to relatives, before crying out from the heart on social networks.
“14 months ago, I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a 15-year-old man opened fire and killed four of my classmates (…). Tonight, I’m sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again sending “I love you” to everyone. When is this going to stop?” she wrote. As terrible as it may seem, Emma is almost getting used to this kind of situation.
“It was easier to manage. In Oxford, when it all happened, I was like petrified and I didn’t know what to do. This time, I was able to do everything I had to do to be safe,” says the student. The young woman calls on the American government to show “common sense” by reforming the law on weapons. “I have been involved in mock shootouts since I was a kid. My generation grew up with it and it doesn’t stop. It’s getting worse and worse,” she says.
The shooting perpetrated Monday on a campus in Lansing, west of Detroit, left three dead and five seriously injured. Anthony McRae, 43, killed himself after a manhunt. The individual had no apparent connection to Michigan State University and his motive remains, at this time, unknown.
On November 30, 2021, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley killed four and injured seven when he opened fire at Oxford High School, a suburb of Detroit. He is incarcerated awaiting trial. His parents are charged with manslaughter.
Ethan Crumbley.
Getty Images via AFP
(joc)