I Don't Like Helicopters

A couple of years ago, I came home to news helicopters hovering more or less over my neighborhood all afternoon. In addition to being an unbelievably annoying noise, it was very disconcerting when we realized that they were actually watching police guard and stake out an apartment near my house. No one had any information, but the words terrorism and explosives were bandied about. As it turned out, the reality was not quite so scary, but quite scary enough, thanks. It turns out a graduate of UNC had driven a rented SUV through a section of campus when it was most busy. No terrorism, just a disturbed young man, but still not a fun day.

Well, the helicopters are back.

Chapel Hill has remarkably little crime, but we woke up Wednesday morning to a news story that an unidentified body had been found, shot multiple times in the head, about a half mile from campus. OK, call me naive, call me unrealistic, but that's just not the kind of crime we get in Chapel Hill. It was scary.

Today, they finally released the name of the victim; I have to admit, I was assuming (hoping) it was going to be someone, shall we say, down on their luck? Of a different lifestyle than me? No racial overtones intended, but I really hoped, and assumed, that this person was someone who'd gotten caught up in a bad lifestyle (drugs or whatever), and had sadly paid the price.

But, it wasn't. It was the Student Body President at UNC. Oh, and a Morehead scholar.

Now, I know it shouldn't matter; one person's life should not have more value than anothers. But this threw me; this should not have happened, not in this town, not to this young woman.

Once her name was released, UNC began holding vigil; the Old Well will toll in her memory throughout the evening, and, yes, the helicopters are hovering again. I know that these things can happen anywhere, and I know that UNC was never exactly what my memory has idealized it as. But still, I don't like that this has happened, in my town, or to my school.