The Cole Hall janitor

By Josh Harrell

On Sunday, I was going to get a photograph of the lecture hall where the shootings happened so that, as a photojournalist, I was covering all my bases. Consequently, I happened to run into a custodian, Pete Scoffield, who works at Cole Hall.

He was not working Thursday, Feb. 14. Instead, he was sitting in class in the next building down from Cole Hall.

During our conversation, Scoffield explained to me some of the things he had heard from his co-workers, who were woking in Cole Hall, about what had had taken place on that fate-filled day.

The shooter, Steven Kazmierczack, paced around between two buildings with his guitar case, waiting...

He walked through the back doors of the building. Kazmierczack then slipped onto the elevated stage overlooking the lecture. From his vantage point, it gave him the "ideal" area to shoot from. Scoffield said the circumstance gave the the shooter a perspective that was like shooting from a tree stand.

"Bird shot spreads. First person, it hit and kills. Second person it kills. Third person it maimes them. The fourth person is wounded," said Scoffield.

What I heard after that took me by surprise. Scoffield said, Kazmierczack, once he ran out of ammunition for his shotgun, began to chase students around Cole 101, firing at them with his handguns.

...


After hearing this testimony, then talking with my colleagues documenting this event, it really made me think about what had to be going through Kaznierczack's mind to get to this point. It had to be so much more than we could comprehend.

Myself, I suffered through the death of my father before the start of my freshman year of high school, I understand some of the pressure that he went through. It had to be so intense to get to the point that he reached to feel that he, along with other people, had to die to feel that he would be relieved from the pain that he was going through.

I feel for these families and friends that were affected by this event.

I will never truly understand the extent to which this event will touch them, but I can definitely tell that this will resonate with college students across the country.