An incident involving firecrackers happened at Berkey Hall. Since then we have learned that the incident did not involve gunshots but rather firecrackers. Having had class in Berkey Hall on the first floor, right outside the stairwell where those firecrackers were set off, all I can say is that I hope whoever pulled this so-called prank not only gets arrested and put in jail but also expelled. For those of you who say, “Oh, it was only firecrackers,” you cannot understand the enormity of the situation that happened for those of us inside the building.

My classroom was on the first floor and when those “shots” went off, my entire class went into survival mode. We did not stop to think that they might have been firecrackers; they sounded almost exactly like a semi-automatic rifle. I tried crawling out the window! In those five minutes that I was in there, I thought that I was going to die. I was going to be another statistic on the five o’clock news. It’s impossible to describe the feelings that go through you when you honestly believe that you are about to die. So to those who pulled this so-called prank, I hope you get expelled (if you go to school here) and thrown in jail. That was not a prank — that was an act of terrorism. This not something that is easily forgotten or easy to get over.