It all started shortly before noon on Wednesday when Cesar Marquez was attending a political training session with a group of students.
“We were in the student union when gunfire started in the building in front of us. So we closed the doors and turned off the lights,” Mr. Marquez, 33, leader of the Forward Party, told Noticias. -Said in an interview with Telemundo. And we were silent for over 30 minutes. ”
On Wednesday, a gunman later identified by police as Anthony Polito, 67, opened fire on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, killing three people and wounding four before being shot and killed by police. Two law enforcement officials told NBC News that Polito applied for a job at the university but was not hired.
Latino students made up nearly a third (32%) of the student body in 2022, according to university statistics, and Hispanics made up nearly 29% of the state’s population in 2020, according to the state Legislature.
Surviving and feeling “reborn”
“It was a very large group, about 100 students,” said Imel Cespedes, 20, a political science major who was locked in the same room as Marquez. I was worried that a gunman would invade our space. I also thought about how I could attack him if necessary. ”
“Honestly, I thank God because I feel like I’ve been born again. The American dream for me means having security, having someone to love, because without my parents or my family, that’s what I want to do.” “I want all politicians to come together and work to create better, safer security policies because it hasn’t been easy to be in the room,” said Cespedes, who was born in the United States and whose parents are Costa Rican. Told.
“I was trying to comfort some of the students who were crying,” said Marquez, who was born in Chicago but whose family is from the Mexican state of Jalisco. “I was very worried. There was a moment when someone tried to open the door. , that’s what I thought.” He felt his heart stop because he didn’t know if he was going to be the shooter. ”
Students shared their fears on social media during the event.
“My fellow citizens, I am very afraid. There is currently a shooter at the university where I am studying,” Carlos Eduardo Espina, a student at the study center, said on his TikTok account.
With tears in his eyes, Espina explained that he had just finished his final exams and was trapped in a classroom with his classmates when he heard a warning that there was a shooter on campus.
“They won’t let us go outside, we’re literally locked in. They say we’re safe in this building, but I don’t know. I’m so scared, well, I can’t help it. . It’s sad what people have here in the United States, guys. I’ve never been close to anything like this,” Espina said.
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Geronimo Guerra, a University of Nevada student who was on campus when the shooting occurred, told EFE news agency that he and his classmates heard the alarm as they were leaving class and thought it was a routine incident. Told.
They then heard gunshots and decided to evacuate. “We hid in one of the cleaning staff’s rooms,” the young man said. “We were trapped for almost three hours, blocking the door with trash cans and suitcases.”
Vincent Perez, a professor at the University of Las Vegas who was evacuated on campus when shots were fired, said he heard seven or eight loud gunshots “one after the other” as he stepped onto the building’s balcony.
“We heard that [and] I ran back inside,” Perez told MSNBC’s Katie Toole. “We realized it was a real shooting and there was an active shooter on campus.”
“It sounded like a high-powered weapon. It sounded like you knew this was someone who was going to kill someone,” Perez said.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman called the shooting a “tragic and heartbreaking event,” adding, “I hope everyone on campus is safe.”
President Joe Biden called on Republicans in Congress to ban assault weapons in light of Wednesday’s mass shootings in Las Vegas and two other Texas cities, Austin and San Antonio, that left six people dead. He reiterated his call for support for the proposal. Biden said the United States has recorded more than 600 mass shootings and more than 40,000 deaths from armed violence this year.
“Together, we must do more to prevent gun violence from tearing more families and communities apart like in Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas,” Biden said in a statement.
Wednesday’s shooting comes after a gunman opened fire from a hotel room at the crowded Harvest Music Festival on the Las Vegas Strip in October 2017, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Las Vegas is once again the epicenter of gun violence. The gunman killed 58 people and injured more than 500.
An earlier version of this article first appeared on Noticias Telemundo.