College Stories: The Tower Sniper

On August 1, 1966, I was walking home from class.  My instructor had dismissed the class at 11:30 that morning, thirty minutes early.  I was on scholastic probation and desperately in need of at least a B to improve my GPA.  As I walked back to our apartment on Rio Grande Street, I heard what I thought was someone hammering on roof shingles.


I was wrong.


The phone was ringing when I opened our apartment door.  It was our friend Monty.  "You're all right?" he said,"Y'know some some son-of-bitch is up on the tower shootin' people!"  I assured him that I was okay and asked him to explain.  "Some mother-f__er is up on the damn tower killin' people on the drag and on nineteenth street"


I hung up and the phone immediately rang again.  It was Jane, my wife...six months pregnant and very, very upset.  I assured her of my good health and told her that I was going to head back to campus to see what was going on.


Bad idea.


Jane informed me, in words that I had never heard come out of her mouth, what her response would be to such an excursion.  I promised to not take a step out of the apartment.


President Lyndon Johnson owned the cable company in Austin at that time.  He also owned the PBS station which was located on nineteenth street.  The station had moved a camera, with a strong telephoto lens, up on their roof.


I watched everything on TV.


There were no SWAT-teams in Austin in 1966 (or anywhere else, for that matter) but the students were well-armed.  Everyone within walking distance, who had a gun in their closet, went to the campus and started blazing away.  I watched the grainy black and white TV picture as dust- puffs from the ad-hoc student militia erupted all over the tower observation deck.  They did some good.  They kept the sniper's head down.  No more students were shot.


Then the cops killed the sniper.


Over the next couple of days, the sniper was identified as Charles Whitman.  He had killed or wounded nearly fifty people, including his wife and mother.


The instructor who had dismissed our class early that day awarded no grades higher than a couple of Bs.


To my knowledge, no one complained.