'Hard to believe,' Michigan State students from Massachusetts recall lockdown, shooting
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN - When an alert went out to the Michigan State University community Monday night telling students to "Run, Fight, Hide," two of its recipients were young men from Swampscott, Massachusetts.
Connor Correnti and Aidan Emmerich are both freshman at Michigan State and sheltered in place when the lockdown alerts came across their phones. Connor was in his dorm room, and Aidan, at the athletic facility where he was practicing for the golf team.
"We barricaded the door with a lot of golf bags," Emmerich explained. "I've never been through something like that, that much in shock," he told WBZ by Zoom on Tuesday. "So fast. It was just... I still think it's kind of hard to believe."
"It was just pretty scary," Correnti added. "I was just looking like at update after update, hoping they would catch the guy soon and when they finally did it was like kind of relieving, but it was still just so scary just like that feeling in your chest."
Both young men were on the phone with their parents and girlfriends back home in Massachusetts as the lockdown was in place. Their families were scared but encouraged them to stay calm, they say, as they heard what sounded like gunshots in the distance. "We don't know if it was definitely gunshots, but it sounded like shots and then sirens so then we panicked a little bit," Emmerich explained.
"It's just one of those things where you are like - I know it happens, but I'm surprised it's happening to me right now," Correnti said.
Both say campus was eerie and sad on Tuesday, as cars line the streets full of parents picking up their students. Unable to fly home, they both plan to visit friends' families in Michigan to get off campus for a while.