On the morning of the shooting John Boswell dropped off his girlfriend Ann in class at a building across from the Tower – the English building. Boswell then went for lunch at a café. He had a large order of fried chicken in front of him when he heard over the radio there was a man shooting from the Tower. His first thought was “gotta get Ann.”
John Boswell took cover behind cars and zig-zagged toward campus: “I’d do a zig-zag to the next one, hit the ground under the car or by the car or whatever. And then I got around the first of the three buildings in the six-pack on the West side – which back then was called the Music Building.”
“I could not see the Tower and I figured, if I couldn’t see the Tower, he couldn’t see anybody behind the building.”
I got to the third floor of the English Building and walked to her room and the professor had the blinds closed, it was air-conditioned, windows were sealed, you couldn’t really hear it. But the professor was just lecturing away and there was Ann in the first row – nobody in the classroom had any idea this was going on.
I went directly to the professor and I said, “Sir, somebody is on top of the Tower firing and this is a very exposed area – I would suggest getting these people out of here immediately.”
It was interesting; he didn’t think it was a joke or ask, “who are you?” He just said thank you and announced it to everybody: “Let’s get down to the basement immediately.” And down we went to the basement.