Thoughts After A Tough Day In Chapel Hill

One of the things you always hear after a shooting is the shock that it could happen here. And by here we mean anywhere because it can happen anywhere. Monday, it happened in Chapel Hill as a graduate student shot and killed a professor.

There is an awful lot that’s unknown still, not least of all motive, but the one blessing that came out of this crime is that it was a murder instead of a massacre. Naturally that’s not much comfort to the family and loved ones of the slain professor, but it could have been so much worse.

There is some compelling and frightening video posted on X, aka Twitter, including this one of a guy just happily wandering around campus and filming when he hears a deafening siren that shuts off long enough for the police to go on a loudspeaker and tell everyone that there is an active shooter and to go inside. This will be sorted out soon enough and the alleged killer will almost certainly never see another free day in his life. He may also face the death penalty, since that is an option for North Carolina prosecutors.

Again, that is small comfort for the people on campus who had the bejesus scared out of them Monday. But we can tell you with some certainty that if any of you Tar Heels need a hug, you can buzz over to Duke, NCCU or, for that matter, over to NC State and there are a whole lot of people on all three campuses who would be happy to hug you as much as you want or need.

Finally, while we know this is going to spark the usual political arguments, we’d urge everyone to, for now, just focus on kindness to one another, and especially to those in Chapel Hill who were so seriously frightened Monday afternoon. We make fun of you guys all the time, but we hate that this happened on your beautiful campus. So we’re going to lay off of Tar Heel jokes for a while and just let the focus be on y’all finding some level of comfort and security again. It may take awhile, we know, but your ACC family will be here for you. Don’t even worry about that. We got you guys.