The Hidden Dangers Lurking Behind Every Window—What Michael Gutierrez Wants You to Know
I text my wife. “Active shooter. I’m in my office. I’m fine.”
For over an hour, the staff member and I sit in my office, in the dark. I check Twitter. A gunman at the student union. Maybe two hundred yards away.
The new staff member is very quiet. I tell her to sit away from the window. I tell her the updates I’m hearing. She is shaky but stoic. There are no tears, no panic as far as I can tell. Our faces are lit by the soft glow of our phones.
There are fewer rumors this time. Perhaps it’s because we’re chastened by all the falsehoods spread the last time or maybe we’re beginning to get used to it. I want to ask the new staff member what it was like growing up with active shooting drills and going to school during a time when you learn to walk into a classroom and plan for where you’ll hide. My first grader has to do this, I want to tell her. They drill this into him, annually. He has to sit in a dark, locked room, far from windows, curled up really small, to hide from “the bad guys.”
