What started as a typical Wednesday on Jan. 22, quickly turned to mayhem when what sounded like a gunshot went off near Gould Hall minutes after 11:20 a.m.
With a Purdue campus shooting occurring the day before and a sound similar to a firearm, those within earshot immediately assumed the worst – a shooter on campus.
At the time, I was walking from Gould Hall to my next class, right next door in Gaylord. After stepping outside, a faculty member was wildly waving his folders and ushering students along, encouraging us to run and get inside. I did not take him seriously until two policemen with assault rifles ran past me into the building I had just exited two seconds earlier.
A good portion of students and faculty immediately went into the intruder drill mode that we remember and love from our primary school days – doors locked, lights out, stay away from the windows. Others continued to wander South Oval, clueless, not finding the swarm of police cars and big guns alarming or out of place. But I was in Gaylord Hall, the hub of on-campus news reporting and broadcasting. Hordes of communication students saw their chance to start their careers off with a bang.
While most students aware of what was happening did their best to find a safe place nearby, Gaylord reporters were eager to be on the scene, reporting live on a possible campus shooting. The third floor of Gaylord provided an aerial view of officers strategically running around with some impressive looking guns (staying away from the windows was not as well enforced). Soon after, SWAT teams joined the ranks, bringing a whole new level of panic to onlookers.
It was social media that really took this day to the next level of hysteria. The noise that had gone off, while eerily similar to a gunshot, was a construction equipment backfire. That one pop escalated to so much more in the fearful minds of everyone on Twitter and GroupMe. What started as a simple machine malfunction led to rumors of an unknown gunman running rampant, two dead and a hostage in their grasp. Rumors continued to snowball, with fear of a second shooter in Adams. I don’t know about the rest of the GroupMe users or group texters, but between my internship message chain and that of my pledge class, as well as personal friend group texts, I was getting a new story of what was supposedly going on every two seconds.
While what turned out to be a construction equipment backfire caused much more panic than expected, everyone seemed to agree that the response time of the authorities was impressive and one of the few comforting things that had happened that day. The other was President David Boren arriving as one of the first responders. One of the rumors even said he rushed to the scene of the crime with an AK47, declaring, “Not on my campus!” Social media definitely keeps it interesting. So that’s what happened, the day OU now commemorates as “the backfire heard around the world.”