Indonesian students safe in U.S.
February 15th, 2008 | by Admin |DEKALB, Illinois : No Indonesian students were among the dead or injured in the deadly shooting Thursday afternoon (Friday morning in Jakarta) at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the U.S.
Five students were killed, along with the shooter.
Ten Indonesians attend NIU, most in the political science department, The Jakarta Post’s M. Taufiqurrahman said in an e-mail.
Philip Jusario Vermonte, an Indonesian PhD student at the NIU political science department told the Post he believed “the December threat would end up like this”.
Vermonte was referring to threats scrawled on a campus bathroom wall that included racial slurs and references to last April’s Virginia Tech shootings.
Vermonte was on his way into Cole Hall on the campus when he saw a group of students running at him.
Gemilang Zull, another Indonesian student who majors in business administration, said he was about to take a mid-term exam when his instructors locked all the doors and told students to stay in the classroom until further notice.
Ali Akrom, a PhD student from Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, pointed to what he said was a chilling omen of the impending horror at Cole Hall.
He said a mock Javanese-style graveyard was put on display by the Department of Anthropology in a hallway that cuts through Cole Hall.
DeKalb is a small college town surrounded by a vast expanse of cornfield with a downtown populated only by red-brick turn-of-the-century shops. There is little crime in town, and violent crimes are rare.
thejakartapost
