Texas Law Prof Dodges Bullets En Route to Class; Law School Locked Down
Updated: Randall Wilhite found out about a shooting today at the University of Texas at Austin in a memorable manner.
As the adjunct law professor was driving to class, he heard what he thought was construction noise. It sounded like five gunshots.
Then he saw students ducking for cover behind trees, bushes and trash cans. Then he saw a man in a suit, armed with what appeared to be an assault rifle, come sprinting down 21st Street across University Drive, about 10 feet in front of his car, according to the Blotter blog of the Austin American-Statesman and the Associated Press.
Although the unidentified suspect had an opportunity to shoot Wilhite and several students, he didn’t, the law prof says:
“He was running right in front of me … and he shot what I thought were three more shots … not at me. In my direction, but not at me, clearly not at me.”
It appears that the man Wilhite saw was a second suspect, wearing a white shirt, tie and ski mask along with his suit, who is still being sought by authorities after a shooting today with an automatic weapon in the campus library. That gunman shot himself, and no one else was injured, the news agency reports.
Students are being told to stay inside, and the university has canceled all classes today.
After driving back to university center where he stays when he is visiting from Houston, and alerting police, Wilhite went on to his law school classroom, where he told students to stay inside. Too shaken to teach, however, he gave them the day off, the Blotter says.
Administrators at the university’s law school sent students a text message at 8:47 a.m. telling them not to come there if they hadn’t already headed to class, Texas Lawyer reported in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
“They tell me I can’t go anywhere or teach any classes. I just have to sit here,” law professor George Dix tells the legal publication. “They have told me to shut my door, but I’ve left it open so I know what’s going on. But I may just be foolhardy.”
Also canceled, according to the article, is a Federalist Society co-sponsored lecture that was to have been held at the law school tonight by John Lott, a Second Amendment scholar and author of the book More Guns, Less Crime.
Updated at 2:03 p.m. to include information from Texas Lawyer.
