'I've never been that scared in my life': International students respond to a campus shooting

Many international students who came to UNC from countries where access to firearms is more restricted than the United States said they felt unprepared during the shooting on UNC's campus last week.  

Graduate student Charlotte Pallier, an exchange student from France, said she did not feel fully informed about the threat when UNC students were initially warned via an Alert Carolina emergency warning on the afternoon of Aug. 28. 

She, and other international students, received the Alert Carolina message via email rather than a text message. Junior Alice Jenkins, an international student from England, said she didn't receive any Alert Carolina texts during the shooting because she did not have a U.S. phone number.

Pallier said the thought of the dangerous person having a gun didn't cross her mind at all.

"For me, I wasn't like 'Wow, what is happening?' It was like 'Maybe there's someone with a knife on campus or someone that seems dangerous.' I didn't at all think about someone with a gun," Pallier said.

Pallier said she mainly communicated with her peers through social media to learn information about the situation — like many UNC students did. 

Jenkins was in Dey Hall when the Alert Carolina emergency warning on one of the screens in her classroom warned students of an “armed, dangerous person on or near campus.”

She said another international student in her class told her she would "never forget" the fear in Jenkins' eyes in that moment.

Junior Sahra Rajani, an international student from Canada, said she was eating lunch outside of Greenlaw Hall when she heard Alert Carolina emergency sirens begin to go off. She entered the building and took shelter in an office. 

“The faculty member that we were in the office with was super underprepared," Rajani said. "We went into her office, and she had no idea what was happening. She didn't even know there was a situation on campus.” 

Jenkins said her professor struggled to lock the door of her classroom in Dey Hall. She added that when they heard sounds of yelling outside, everyone in the class, including the professor, dropped to the floor or hid behind chairs. 

"I've never been that scared in my life,” Jenkins said. “I was just looking at the door, and I knew someone could just come in.”

Pallier said some of her international friends’ parents were reluctant to believe the news. When some of her friends told their parents about the event, she said their parents thought they were joking.

According to a 2019 survey by the World Education Services, a quarter of international students across the United States expressed concern over gun violence at their educational institutions.

Rajani, Jenkins and Pallier said they relied on their U.S. friends to guide them through their first campus shooting.

“We would always read about gun violence and shootings and stuff like that in the news,” Rajani said. “But to me, it was very much a removed thing.”

Jenkins said she didn't know what the sirens meant during the initial Alert Carolina emergency warning. 

She had never heard any alarms beside fire alarms in England, where she was taught to go outside to avoid harm, so it went against her instincts to remain inside. 

“We were all listening to the scanners, reading the news, texting friends, and there was just a lot of misinformation going on," Rajani said. "I feel like it probably could have been avoided if we had heard anything from the school instead of trying to figure it out ourselves.” 

Jenkins said she feels people in the United States are “desensitized” to gun violence. 

Some of her peers were "looking out the window" and continued to carry on normal discussions after the warnings, she said. Jenkins added that for her, the shooting was “one of the most traumatic experiences” she had in her life. 

“The fact that people were so calm and didn't seem scared made me angry, and it made me sad,” she said.

While many students processed the shooting at home during the long Labor Day weekend, Rajani was unable to visit her family.

But, she said she is grateful for the way UNC "came together" after the events of Aug. 28.

“It just made me really grateful for my community of friends and people around me", she said.

@dailytarheel | university@dailytarheel.com