96 Minutes
On August 1, 1966, CHARLES WHITMAN climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower and started firing—and the rest, literally, is history. Here’s what happened on that fateful day, in the words of more than three dozen people who got shot, fired back, lost loved ones, saved lives by risking their own, and otherwise witnessed the nation’s first mass murder in a public place.
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KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON was a law student. She is the senior U.S. senator from Texas.
I was in class when the shooting began. We were told that there was a shooter in the Tower, and we watched from the front lawn of the law school. We could see the smoke from the gun each time it fired, although we did not know at the time that he was marking innocent people.
BILL HELMER was a graduate student in American history. He is a historical-crime writer living in Boerne.
I made my way to the east window in the Texas Union stairwell and was more or less marveling at this nut on the Tower until a shot came in through the open window and hit the arm of the guy beside me. Then I got a wee bit rattled. I thought, “Son of a bitch! This guy is good.”
JOHN PIPKIN: He was picking people off at incredible distances and hitting them where he could do the most damage. I heard about a guy who was eating a sandwich in the front yard of the Kappa house, minding his own business, when he was shot through the chest.
GARY LAVERGNE: The farthest casualty was well over five hundred yards away, at the A&E Barber Shop, on the Drag. A basketball coach named Billy Snowden saw what was happening on the news and got out of the barber’s chair to get a better look. He was standing in the doorway, with his smock still on, when he was shot in the shoulder.
CLAIRE JAMES: A really lovely young woman with red hair ran up to me and said, “Please, let me help you.” I told her to get down so she wouldn’t attract attention, and she lay down next to me. It was a beautiful, selfless act. I told her my name and my blood type, and she made sure to keep me talking so I wouldn’t lose consciousness. She stayed with me for at least an hour, until people came and carried me away.
DAVID MATTSON: We thought that perhaps Sheftall’s was being robbed, so Tom Herman and I locked ourselves in the back lavatory. It was sheer terror not knowing if we would be able to escape or if someone was going to come back there and finish us off. A policeman finally pounded on the back door and said, “There’s an ambulance just a couple of doors down, so make a run for it.” By the time we got to the ambulance, the driver had been shot. He was laid out in the back. We squeezed in beside him, and the policeman took us to the hospital, driving down alleys and using buildings for cover.
ROBERT HEARD was a reporter for the Associated Press. Now a nonfiction writer, he lives in Austin.
Ernie Stromberger, of the Dallas Times Herald, and I drove to campus and parked behind two highway patrolmen who were putting together their shotguns. We figured they were headed for the Tower, so we started following them. When they ran across Twenty-fourth Street, Ernie stayed put; I followed, a few seconds behind them. Just before I reached the curb, I was shot down. I’d forgotten my Marine training; I hadn’t zigzagged. It felt like someone had hit my shoulder with a brick. I staggered another three yards and fell in the street.
JOHN ECONOMIDY was a senior and the editor of the Daily Texan. He is a criminal defense lawyer in San Antonio.
I saw an ambulance round the corner by Hogg Auditorium and stop for two students who had been shot. Both kids had chest wounds and were bleeding through their mouths and noses. I tried to help load them in, and then I took off for the Texan. When I ran into the newsroom, I saw a couple of my photographers just standing there, looking through the venetian blinds. I said, “Get off your butts. Get out there and win the Pulitzer Prize!”
ROBERT HEARD: As soon as I hit the pavement, I sat up. I was wearing a white shirt and blood was cascading down it. Some people in the Biological Sciences Building yelled, “Lie down! Lie down!” Either they or another group of students—I never knew who they were—ran out into the street, knowing they could be shot, and dragged me under the trunk of a Studebaker. Ernie Stromberger called in to the Times Herald and said, “Tell the people at the AP that they no longer have a man on the job.”
HARPER SCOTT CLARK was a junior. He is the Killeen bureau reporter for the Temple Daily Telegram.
I went to Scholz’s at around 12:10 or so, and it was packed. There was a black and white TV running in a corner of the main barroom. Everyone was standing around with their mugs and pitchers because there was nowhere to sit. There was a businessman standing near me—your typical good old boy in cowboy boots and pressed jeans and Western-style shirt—and he said, “Well, I hope they get him off that Tower pretty quick, because the anti-gun people are going to go crazy over this.”
“IT SEEMED LIKE EVERY OTHER GUY HAD A RIFLE.”
Students waited and waited for the police to arrive. The shootings would spur the creation of SWAT teams across the country, but at that time, the Austin Police Department had no tactical unit to deploy. Its officers had only service revolvers and shotguns, which were useless against a sniper whose perch was hundreds of yards away. Communication with headquarters was difficult, with few handheld radios, and the phone system was jammed across the city. Some officers went home to get their rifles; others directed traffic away from campus. In the absence of any visible police presence, students decided to defend themselves.
JAMES DAMON was a graduate student in comparative literature. A retired real estate investor, he lives in Austin.
My wife was six months pregnant, and she was stuck on the fourth floor of the Tower, in the stacks. I looked around and didn’t see any police, so I went home and got my gun. It was an M1 carbine, which I’d bought for $15 when I was discharged from the Army. I went to the top of the new Academic Center and tried to keep out of sight. That was the closest I could get. I only saw him once, long enough to take aim, but from time to time I would shoot over the ledge of the observation deck and try to hit him.
CLIF DRUMMOND was a senior and the student body president. He is a high-tech executive in Austin.
Students with deer rifles were leaning up against telephone poles, using the pole, which is rather narrow, as their shield. And they were firing like crazy back at the Tower.
FORREST PREECE was a junior. A retired advertising executive, he lives in Austin.
I saw two guys in white shirts and slacks running across the lawn of the Pi Phi house, hustling up to its porch with rifles at the ready. Someone was yelling, “Keep down, man. Keep down!”
BRENDA BELL: I don’t know where these vigilantes came from, but they took over Parlin Hall and were crashing around, firing guns. There was massive testosterone.
J. M. COETZEE was a Ph.D. candidate in English literature and linguistics. A novelist who won the 2003 Nobel Prize for literature, he lives in Adelaide, Australia.
I hadn’t fully comprehended that lots of people around me in Austin not only owned guns but had them close at hand and regarded themselves as free to use them.
BILL HELMER: I remember thinking, “All we need is a bunch of idiots running around with rifles.” But what they did turned out to be brilliant. Once he could no longer lean over the edge and fire, he was much more limited in what he could do. He had to shoot through those drain spouts, or he had to pop up real fast and then dive down again. That’s why he did most of his damage in the first twenty minutes.
JOHN PIPKIN: I’d left Scholz’s and was sitting across the street from the Chi Omega house when this Texas Ranger walked up carrying a pair of binoculars and a rifle with a scope on it. For some reason, he picked me out of the group of kids sitting on the curb. He said, “Son, you ever done any hunting?” And I said, “Yes, sir, I’ve been hunting all my life.” He said, “Well, take these binoculars. I need for you to calibrate me.” And I said, “Okay.” Whitman would stick his rifle out through one of these drainpipes on the observation deck every once in a while and shoot at someone. The ranger would shoot back, and I’d say, “You’re an inch too high,” or “Bring it over to the left a couple inches.”
BILL HELMER: A friend of mine was glued to the TV at the San Jacinto Cafe, near campus, when a guy with a deer rifle ran in, grabbed a six-pack of beer, and ran back out.
ANN MAJOR: It seemed like every other guy had a rifle. There was a sort of cowboy atmosphere, this “Let’s get him” spirit.
JOHN PIPKIN: I was looking through the binoculars when all of a sudden I thought to myself, “Gosh, he’s pointing that rifle at me.” It was like I could see up inside the barrel of the rifle, from four hundred yards away. The next thing I knew, I could feel bullets grazing the top of the hair on my head. The ranger said, “Boy, we got his attention now.” I was absolutely terrified. I dropped the binoculars and scrambled around behind a tree, and then a car. I sat there and panted, thinking how close I’d come to being shot. The ranger said, “You okay, son?” I said, “I guess. I’m alive.” He said, “Yeah, that was pretty close.” And I said, “Yes, sir, it was too close. I think I’m done with my spotting.”
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