MSU students honor victims of mass shooting, commiserate together one year after tragedy
EAST LANSING, Mich. (FOX 2) - A somber mood settled over East Lansing Tuesday as students honored the victims of the mass shooting one year ago. Three Michigan State University students died and five others were injured when gunman opened fire inside a classroom on Feb. 13, 2023.
It left a student body shaken and another group of young people traumatized by an all too familiar symptom of gun violence.
Irene Kang, a sophomore enrolled at MSU said the tragedy only felt real to her after she attended one of the vigils held in honor of Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner, and Brian Fraser, the three killed last year.
"I think it was just crazy - I think it takes a second to realize like ‘oh this happened.’ I don’t even think I processed what happened until several weeks later," she said.
Kang's friend Rebecca said going through the experience was surreal. Doing it with people you knew and learned alongside was hard to comprehend.
"It’s been rough. Honestly, it’s not easy to go through something like this, especially when you’re also like, fellow people you go to school with, people the same age as you it just becomes really real," she said.
Both sophomores were among the students that went to the Spartan Statue on MSU's campus on Tuesday. Hundreds of them made the pilgrimage, laying flowers at the base of the statue.
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Benjamin Schneider, another sophomore who spent part of the day honoring the victims recalled being on the east side of campus in his room at the time of the shooting.
"I was in my dorm at Hubbard - pretty far away but still, it was shocking. Everyone was like in their dorms huddled up," Schneider said. "It was just kind of traumatic."
While the day was full of sorrow, it was also a unifying one as students shared in both the trauma and what comes after that.