Twenty-five years ago today, on November 1, 1991, a 28-year-old University of Iowa student went on a shooting rampage, killing four members of the university faculty and one student: his professor Christopher Goertz, department chairman Dwight Nickolson, associate professor Robert Smith, fellow researcher Linhua Shan, and Anne Cleary, an associate vice president and professor of education.
The shooter, a graduate student from China named Gang Lu, also seriously wounded another student, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, before he shot himself.
On this edition of River to River, we remember the tragedy and the victims by talking with some who were in Iowa City on that day. Later in the hour, host Ben Kieffer talks with analysts on how our country has reacted to the epidemic of mass shootings in the country in terms of active shooter training, campus mental health services, and media coverage.
The guests on today's program include:
- Tom Rocklin, Vice President for Student Life at the University of Iowa
- Kim Yaman, Survivor Fellow in North Carolina with Everytown for Gun Safety
- Dean Borg, Iowa Public Radio correspondent
- Barry Schreier, director of the University Counseling Services and clinical professor of psychology at the University of Iowa
- Douglas Gentile, professor of psychology at the University of Iowa
- Greg Crane, founder and CEO of the ALICE Training Institute
If you or someone you know has been impacted by gun violence and experience triggers on anniversaries of shootings, the Disaster Distress Helpline is dedicated to providing year-round disaster crisis counseling. It's a toll-free, multilingual, crisis support service available 24/7 via telephone (1-800-985-5990) and SMS (text ‘TalkWithUs’ to 66746) for people experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters.
