The first mass school shooting in U.S. history
The first mass school shooting in U.S. history
Neal Spelce, who reported live on the Texas Tower shooting of 1966, describing the response to the event.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
JEFF WALLENFELDT: Regrettably, in 2016, we're all too familiar with mass shootings. The circumstances or the stories of the shootings are different, but all we have to hear is the term "active shooter," and we instantly have a sense of what's going on. But back in August 1966, did you have any kind of frame of reference for what you were watching, or did it all just seem surreal?
NEAL SPELCE: It seemed very surreal. We had zero frame of reference for this. No one had even imagined something like this could occur. After all, it was really the first mass school shooting ever in the history of United States. Now this was very unique. Even today, it's unique. This was an open gun battle outside, with sniper in the tower shooting people, and people on the ground, police, as well as citizens, firing back at the tower, and people running and screaming, trying to get out of the way. All of this was captured on film. As you look at that old black and white, grainy film today, you realize what an important event it really was, and it was taking place out in the open.
Now how do you prepare for that? You can't prepare for that. Even today, when there's an active shooter call that goes out, most of the time, it's not outside where the public is actually being involved in it. This was something that you can't really plan. How do you cover something that covers a vast expanse? A very tall building, 27 stories tall, with wide-open campus all around the building, and the sniper's shooting in all four directions and killing and hitting people. To try to cover something like-- or plan to covering something like that would be a daunting task. We just simply reacted.
WALLENFELDT: And it was such a catastrophic event. I think it must have changed Austin, and it certainly changed America, I think.
SPELCE: You know, Austin was never the same after that, but also, I think the country was never the same after that, as well. Now, of course, it was the first of its kind. That's understood. That we had SWAT teams that were formed in other cities. They didn't have SWAT teams before that, but as a result of the shooting in Austin, those SWAT teams were created in order to handle a duplicate situation, should it occur in that sense. But let me tell you something. You talk about being changed, nobody locked their cars back then. Nobody locked their front doors back then. It was just an innocent, an innocent time. Now look what we go through. How many times do you go through a security situation just in your daily lives? How many times do you get the fear that especially women who walk around through their communities and they look this way or they look that way, or they're conscious of their surroundings in that sense. We lost our innocence back then.
NEAL SPELCE: It seemed very surreal. We had zero frame of reference for this. No one had even imagined something like this could occur. After all, it was really the first mass school shooting ever in the history of United States. Now this was very unique. Even today, it's unique. This was an open gun battle outside, with sniper in the tower shooting people, and people on the ground, police, as well as citizens, firing back at the tower, and people running and screaming, trying to get out of the way. All of this was captured on film. As you look at that old black and white, grainy film today, you realize what an important event it really was, and it was taking place out in the open.
Now how do you prepare for that? You can't prepare for that. Even today, when there's an active shooter call that goes out, most of the time, it's not outside where the public is actually being involved in it. This was something that you can't really plan. How do you cover something that covers a vast expanse? A very tall building, 27 stories tall, with wide-open campus all around the building, and the sniper's shooting in all four directions and killing and hitting people. To try to cover something like-- or plan to covering something like that would be a daunting task. We just simply reacted.
WALLENFELDT: And it was such a catastrophic event. I think it must have changed Austin, and it certainly changed America, I think.
SPELCE: You know, Austin was never the same after that, but also, I think the country was never the same after that, as well. Now, of course, it was the first of its kind. That's understood. That we had SWAT teams that were formed in other cities. They didn't have SWAT teams before that, but as a result of the shooting in Austin, those SWAT teams were created in order to handle a duplicate situation, should it occur in that sense. But let me tell you something. You talk about being changed, nobody locked their cars back then. Nobody locked their front doors back then. It was just an innocent, an innocent time. Now look what we go through. How many times do you go through a security situation just in your daily lives? How many times do you get the fear that especially women who walk around through their communities and they look this way or they look that way, or they're conscious of their surroundings in that sense. We lost our innocence back then.