Two survivors of Brown University attack escaped other school shootings | US news
The scene was eerily familiar to at least two students when the deadly attack unfolded at Brown University, which left students hiding under desks and stunned as gunshots rang out.
Years ago, 21-year-old Mia Tretta and 20-year-old Zoe Weissman survived school shootings. “What I feel most is: How can this country allow this to happen to someone like me a second time?” Weissman he told the New York Times.
On Saturday, two people were killed and nine others were injured when a man dressed in black opened fire during final exams at one of America’s most prestigious colleges. Because the suspect was at large, hundreds of police officers spent the night searching the campus and surrounding neighborhoods.
While Weissman was in his dorm room at Brown, a friend called to warn him that a shooting was imminent. Her initial feelings of panic quickly turned into anger, she told NBC. “I’m angry because I thought I’d never have to deal with this again, and here I am eight years later.” Weissman told NBC News.
He was 12 years old when he witnessed a shooting at the high school next door to his middle school in Parkland, Florida. 17 people died in the shooting attack in 2018.
Tretta was shot in the stomach in 2019 when a 16-year-old boy opened fire at Saugus High School near Los Angeles, killing two people, including his best friend.
“People always think that that person will never be me,” Tretta told the New York Times. “And I was thinking the same thing until the shooting at my school.”
He was studying in his dormitory on Saturday. He had originally planned to study at the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building, where the attack took place, but changed his mind because he felt tired.
Saturday’s attack once again highlighted long-standing calls for gun control in the United States, where gun laws are among the most permissive in the developed world. There have been 389 mass shootings across the U.S. so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which identifies incidents in which four or more victims are shot. More than 500 mass shooting incidents were reported last year.
On Saturday, Tretta and Weissman said they assumed they would never have to experience a shooting again.
“The only thing that gave me relief was that statistically it was almost impossible for this to happen to me again,” Weissman said. “And frankly we’re getting to the point where no one can say that anymore.”
