The lawn in front of the University of Texas at Austin tower was full Wednesday night as community members came together for a vigil hosted by UT's student government to honor the victims of Sunday's mass shooting.
The shooting claimed the lives of UT student Savitha Shan, Texas Tech University student Ryder Harrington and Jorge Pederson, who had moved to Austin just two weeks before.
Buford's, the West Sixth Street bar where the shooting began, is widely known among students as a college bar and has been a familiar spot for members of the campus community for years.
At the vigil, a brass quintet welcomed community members into the space with a rendition of "Over the Rainbow." In the crowd, some students leaned on one another and held candles and tissues tightly in their hands.
UT's student body president, Hudson Thomas, began his remarks by saying this was the kind of grief that the entire campus feels together. "Every life on this campus carries an inherent value and a unique purpose. When even just one member of this community is lost, it leaves a space that can never be replaced," Thomas said.
He was joined on stage by Shan's family and members of UT Austin's student government. Sprinkled throughout the crowd, staff from several campus offices distributed tissues and comforted students. After Thomas spoke, other members of UT's student government read a poem, encouraged the community to take care of one another and offered insight into available campus resources.
Jason Hatheway, a freshman, told KUT News that while he didn't know any of the victims personally, he's still struggling to parse through the grief and his feelings.
He was out late on Saturday and saw the news of the shooting before he went to bed. " I couldn't go to sleep. It hit me really hard — all those people being so scared and just having to deal with that and not knowing whether they're gonna live or not, it hit me really hard," he said. "I just walked around campus for a bit."
Hatheway said he hopes the tragedy leads to change, including expanded mental health services, more time for the community to process loss, and fewer guns.
Other students said they are feeling angry, scared and overwhelmed in the days following the shooting. "I just feel anxious living in Austin right now," sophomore Jazmin Storrs said. She doesn't know what it would take for her to start feeling safer.
Hundreds of community members, mainly students, gathered the night before on the UT south lawn. They took part in a vigil organized by the UT chapter of Students Demand Action, a gun violence prevention organization, as a way to give people space to grieve and heal.
Two shirts with the names of Harrington and Pederson were set up as a memorial where students left flowers and electric candles. Organizers said they did not have a shirt for Shan because they wanted to honor her family's wishes for privacy.
Chapter members read statements written by the three victims' families and friends before honoring them with a moment of silence. They later read a statement by the organization that said, "We do not need thoughts and prayers from leaders who had every opportunity to step up and pass common sense laws that could actually prevent tragedies like this from happening again."
Hayden Presley, who is part of the group, said they did not expect such a large number of people to attend the vigil.
"It's very close to everyone's heart, it's people who are our age that passed," Presley said. "Being able to celebrate these people while also taking the time to feel and grieve yourself is very important and doing that as a community and knowing you're not alone in your grief is very important."
For more than an hour, students sat around the memorial, holding each other in silence.
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