To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (31442 ) 4/13/2003 3:49:26 PM From: jim black Read Replies (1) | Respond to Yes. I was taking a summer class in physical chemistry in one of the relatively few air-conditioned buildings. It was close to noon and we had noticed some university police running around outside with shotguns (talk about useless equipment). Heard a few shots and I assumed the annual war on pidgeons had been declared. In summer there was pidgeon crap everywhere if they were not culled. Then near class end the prof got a laugh as there began to drip water through the ceiling onto him. As it turned out the room upstairs was not air-conditioned and the folks up there got the picture and got scared so badly they scambled and left a sink running...drip, drip onto the prof's head after running over. That we found out later. When our class let out we headed for the exit and were screamed back into the building by a Texas Highway Partol officer hiding behind a car vehicle, rifle in hand. Some of us including myself were a little slow... couple of seconds later a shot hit between us and car where patrolman was hiding and we scrammed out the back to. I headed the backway to my apartment, ready to get the hell out of town, not having a clue what was going on. No CNN back then either remember...Christ I am getting old! My roomate had a much worse experience. He was walking on the main mall west of the tower in wide open, casually just going along, when the head of a bicylcer about thirty feet in front of him exploded, the shot coming a second later. I don't think he got over it. The guy had nearly hit him by accident and Jess had mumbled something to the effect of "you sonofabitch"...an absolutely insane day. Jess told me he vomitted on the spot and he could not eat for a couple of days. I really missed going up to look from the tower. It was permantly closed. It was built inadvertantly to be a SWAT team's nightmare. There were no swat teams back then. The policeman, Gonzales, I think his name was, who finally got to him and had the shootout had to climb through a mess of chairs, tables, etc. to get to Whitman. The sob had shot the sweet lady who was in charge of sign ing visitors in. Gonzales was armed only with his 38 Specila service revolver. It was so raw for so long that when Kurt Russell played the made for TV film Univ of TX would not let them shoot the film from the UT campus. Instead the film was shot at a poor substitute, the Univ of Nebraska.
