#unlv rebels

I am a notorious stoner. Smelling a little like weed has been something I’ve just come to terms with. I could give a lot of reasons I smoke weed, but none of them really seems to matter right now. I was sitting down for one last hit of my pipe, looking at the clock on my computer and knowing I was running behind.

I have office hours at 12:30pm, but I like to get there half an hour earlier. Wednesdays are my long days. I have my office hours, then a three-hour class right after, and I like a little time to get my own assignments done. That was the plan, after all. Get to my office hours with my head a little in the clouds, finish the presentation I had due that night, and get ready for the end of the semester. A little weed before I head to my office hours keeps me level-headed. I walk from my campus apartment to my campus office, and during the ten-minute walk, my head usually clears up, and I feel prepared for my day.

I was just ten minutes behind. Usually, around 11:45am, I’d be walking in the middle of campus. I wanted to get to campus a little earlier that day, since I use the student pharmacy to fill my medications. I was running out of one, so I needed to stop by before I made my way to my office. I cursed at myself for being late, for giving in to that stoner-desire to just sit and have another hit before walking out the door. I had a student who wanted to stop by my office hours to discuss something from class, and I didn’t want to be late in case she stopped by at the beginning of my office hours. Even so, I was running late.

Just as I was standing up to grab my backpack and head out the door, I got a text on my phone.

UPDSouth – UNLV

UPD Alert – UNLV

University Police responding to report of shots fired in BEH evacuate to a safe area, RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.

And I shook. It was instant. As soon as I read those words, my body went cold, and I was trembling. I collapsed back into my chair, not entirely believing what was happening. That was 11:52am. A few minutes later, at 11:57am, I got the same text again. It was real. I should have been walking to my office, but I was quaking in my bedroom. BEH is not a far walk from my apartment. I live on campus to make my life easier, after all. Walking to class is a lot easier than driving. The convenience has always been the highlight of living on campus, but suddenly I felt like I wanted to be anywhere but there.

Would the shooter be on the move? Would they head towards the dorms, or would they head towards my side of campus? I texted my professor first, asking if she was on campus. Then I brought up the group chat I have with other students in my department. Frantically, I ask who is on campus. Several of them were, some were off campus. Everyone was sheltering in place.

I cried. Knowing my friends were closer to the danger than I was, knowing they were scared and barricaded in offices, I cried. Knowing my professor, a woman who has mentored me since I first came to UNLV, was locked in a classroom made my stomach churn. We had no information; we knew nothing. All we could do was send texts back and forth, everyone checking on everyone we know.

I was getting texts from friends around town. My psychiatrist checked on me. I had to send that text nobody wants to send to their parents. There is an active shooter. I am alive and I am safe. What did my mom and dad feel when they saw that? Were they holding it together for me? When I called my mother, she simply reassured me I was safe, that I was not in danger. But my whole body, my brain, was telling me I was. I may not have been in the thick of the shooting, but I was on the campus where it was happening. I knew, just a few minutes away, people were dying. I did not yet know how many, but I knew it would not be good.

Maybe I’m a product of my generation, because after checking with all my friends, I took to Twitter. I posted I am a student at UNLV, and that I am safe and sheltering. A flood of support poured in, including journalists looking for comment. I spoke with one of them, giving her what information I knew, telling her how students seem to be feeling and how little information we were being given. She was very kind, this journalist. She kept updating me on news from the police, even though she didn’t have to. I was just another source for her, but she treated me like a human being going through a traumatic situation. I’m not entirely sure why I talked to her when she asked for comment, but in the moment, it seemed like the right thing to do. Let the world know how scared we are, how inevitable this has felt for so many of us. I wanted her, and everyone else, to know how scared I was.

The misinformation was easy to absorb, and it was everywhere, mostly because we had no verified information to rely on. There were reports of 28-35 people shot, multiple shooters, someone shooting in the library, SWAT and Navy SEALS being brought in. Screenshots of students saying they’ve been told by police over 35 were dead were being spread through group chat to group chat. It is so easy to look back and realize what was obviously not true, but in the moment, when you’re begging for scraps of news, you’ll accept almost anything. We all took things with a grain of salt, but what if they were real? What if 35 people had been killed? What if 28 people were actually shot? Was it true that a second shooter was barricaded in a building, and the police were trying to get them out? Was it true that there was a second shooter, a woman, who had been killed? We knew nothing. Spreading speculation was almost like a way of staying sane, of trying to make sense of a senseless situation.

Eventually, my friends start telling me they’re getting evacuated. The relief I feel knowing they’re getting home safely is overwhelming. I’ve been locked in my bedroom, staying away from windows and doors, just waiting for the situation to end. It is a relief knowing my friends and colleagues will get home safe. I know not everyone on campus will be so lucky.

Much of the day still feels like a blur. At some point, two hours had passed, but it felt like days and minutes all at once. Now that a night of sleep has passed between me and the shooting, it feels even more surreal.

I can’t explain the guilt I feel. I have read students talk about how they heard the gunshots, heard screaming and panic. How they ran for their lives, not knowing what was happening, making their way from building to building hoping they wouldn’t get shot. I think about all their fears and what they must have been feeling and I feel this incredible guilt because I hadn’t yet left my apartment. I was close, but not as close as some. I will not have to hear the screaming or the gunshots in my sleep. I will feel the panic forever, the fear forever, but there are some scars I did not come away with. And I am both grateful and full of such intense guilt that I cannot shoulder this burden for other students.

I do not know what the coming days will look like. Now we know the man’s name, but I will not repeat it. We do not yet know the names of the victims, but texts from friends tell me it was faculty. As someone working towards being faculty one day, I am scared. Will this happen again? Will I have to endure this terror another time during my life because I have chosen higher education as my career?

I shouldn’t have to fear this. None of us had to go through this. The three people who lost their lives should still be alive. I do not need to speak out loud every argument about gun control that has been hashed and rehashed every mass shooting since Columbine. I do not need to say, as yet another survivor of a school shooting, that this didn’t need to happen. But I am saying it. This did not need to happen. These people did not need to die. These students did not have to be traumatized. Our campus will never feel safe again, and this did not have to be how it is.

I hope I can take care of myself. I hope others can take care of themselves. I’ve already seen the Las Vegas community step up and come together. They did it in 2017, long before I lived here, and now I am seeing it with my own two eyes. Las Vegas shouldn’t have to reuse a hashtag. #VegasStrong shouldn’t have to trend again for another shooting. #UNLVStrong didn’t have to come to pass. Yet here we are, coming together as a community.

To all my fellow Rebels, I love you. I am glad you survived. And to those we lost, I am so sorry. We will carry your memories on, because your memories are blessings to us.

My relationship with UNLV is forever changed.

There’s no going back to a before.

-Victoria Parra

You can have anything you want in life so long as you’re dressed for it.

The Mountain West will most likely fit into its comfortable spot as the #2 conference in the G5. An undefeated MWC team will get a hard look by the selection committee over a 12-1 AAC squad. Now let’s see if anybody can go 13-0.

Can Go 13-0: Boise State

In all likelihood only one Mountain West team is capable of pulling off an undefeated run, and they haven’t been close in a while. Boise will be likely be favored in every game they play, but can they avoid the slip-ups that have plagued them for the last couple of years?

Other Big Contenders: San Diego State, Colorado State

The two-time Mountain West champs return strong and should win the West with ease. Colorado State played brilliantly at the end of last year and could certainly make a deep run if they play at the same level.

The Upper-Middle Class: Wyoming, Air Force

Wyoming was a great story last year but they lose a lot of the guys that helped them win the division. Air Force remains a potent threat to take down any team in the conference.

The Middle Class: New Mexico, Utah State, Hawaii

New Mexico has been playing well for the past few seasons. Utah State has been slowly regressing but I don’t think it’ll continue. Hawaii is improving and in a bad West division just a little improvement will make them an easy #2 pick.

The Basement: Nevada, Fresno State, UNLV, San Jose State