MORGANTOWN — WVU President Gordon Gee wrote a letter to the university community Sunday — following a weekend that saw one student killed and another injured in acts of gun violence one day apart.
“I realize it may feel that West Virginia University is no longer a safe campus,” the president wrote in the letter distributed through social media.
Gee reminded students about the protection provided by the university’s on-campus police department.
There’s that, he said, plus counseling and other mental health services offered through WVU’s Carruth Center.
Early Friday morning, WVU student Eric James Smith, 21, was shot dead at College Park, a student housing complex near campus.
Smith, a multidisciplinary studies sophomore from Clementon, N.J., died in the doorway of his apartment after being shot several times.
Terrell Tyrese Linear, 21, and Shaundarius Tavon Reeder, 20, both of Fairmont, are facing charges of first-degree murder in the slaying.
A day later, in the early morning hours Saturday, another WVU student was injured in a reported shootout in a College Avenue dwelling — after a robbery attempt that also included a dispute over marijuana.
As of Sunday, police had yet to release the student’s name or the extent of his injuries.
Ethan S. Horseman, 20, and Edward Hnewea Kolleh, 28, were arrested on multiple charges after the incident.
Horseman was charged with unlawful wounding, and both men will also stand in court on two counts each of first-degree armed robbery and conspiracy.
WVU, Gee said, won’t be looking the other way after this weekend’s crimes.
“Our campus is a small city and a microcosm of the world around us,” he wrote.
“The sad fact is our part of the world is all beset with all the ill — and good — of society at large.
“We cannot stop bad things from happening — but we can work to prevent them and be prepared for when they do.”
At the Mountainlair student union on late Sunday afternoon, Corey Crowder, a geosciences major from Charleston, was grabbing his dinner in the food court.
Crowder appreciated the president’s overture, he said.
“I don’t know if I was ‘reassured,’ necessarily,” he said, “but I do like that the university is attempting to address it.”
His friend, Karly Walker, a nursing major from Winfield, in Putnam County, agreed — even if she now experiences the goosebumps of vulnerability more than she used to.
“I don’t really go out by myself anymore,” she said.
“You’re always going to be safer in a group.”
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