Tom Graves was on and near campus the day of the UT Tower shooting and was a witness to some of the events. He was getting ready to start a shift at Texas State Bank at what is now MLK and Guadalupe when he heard news of something happening on campus. Graves went to check it out and ended up far closer to the event than he intended.
“I started hearing sirens — police and ambulance were coming around and a police car pulled up right where we were on the Drag right behind the Architecture Building and a young cop got out,” Graves says. “He was about my age I think. It turned out his name was Billy Speed.”
Speed was shortly afterwards shot and killed by the sniper.