BOULDER, Colo.-
About 200 University of Colorado at Boulder students and city residents held a candlelight vigil for the Virginia Tech community outside the Student Union Wednesday evening.
Later, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking at CU, said the shootings were brutal and senseless.
Dozens of people crowded around a table to scrawl messages on a banner to send to Virginia Tech students.
“Please keep hope alive,” one student wrote. “Thank you for your strength,” wrote another.
Student leaders from Jewish, Muslim and Christian groups led interfaith prayers and read from the Quran for those who died.
Freshman Patricia Leung said she wanted to show support from Asian-Americans after seeing Internet postings making racist comments about the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korea native.
“I wanted to show that not all Asian-Americans are like that,” she said.
Leung said the shootings affected her. “It just hit me. There’s so many innocent people, kids my age who haven’t really experienced life. I just felt like coming out and supporting and giving my prayers,” Leung said.
“You don’t have to go too far to know someone who knew someone who was affected,” said Eric Ostenfeld, a Boulder resident and Virginia Tech graduate. He said his brother, a teacher in northern Virginia, has a student whose sister was among those slain.
“We just wanted to show our heartfelt sorrow for everything that happened,” Ostenfeld said.
Annan, appearing as part of CU’s Distinguished Speakers and Cultural Events programs, called the shootings numbing.
“Students who were there on that campus were simply going about their business, and there was that brutal and senseless killing,” he said.
“When these things happen we all become numb. We all begin to question and doubt. I think it is at moments like this that we should all rally and support each other and remember a good university is happy one and reach out to each other and keep that way,” he said.
