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50th Anniversary Texas Clock Tower Shooting
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Before Virginia Tech and Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora and Orlando, there was the University of Texas tower shooting.
It was shortly before noon on a sweltering Monday morning, Aug. 1, 1966, when architectural engineering student and Marine-trained sniper Charles Whitman climbed to the observation deck of the 27-story clock tower in the heart of UT's flagship Austin campus, armed with rifles, pistols and a sawed-off shotgun.
He killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others before authorities gunned him down. He had killed his wife and mother prior to heading to the tower, one victim died in the hospital a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001 — a man who had been shot and wounded in his one functioning kidney and elected to stop dialysis treatment.
File: Charles J. Whitman, a 24-year-old student at the University of Texas, is shown in this is a 1966 photograph. ASSOCIATED PRESS
The killing spree introduced the nation to the concept of a "mass shooting" outside the context of a military battlefield, coining a phrase in American lexicon that's become chillingly commonplace. Dozens of times since Whitman, a lone gunman has claimed large numbers of victims in single shooting incidents.
Now, five decades after its original publication, The Associated Press has made available a version of its story from that fateful day, written by AP newsman Garth Jones:
A young student and scoutmaster, firing with a Marine sniper's cold and deadly accuracy, killed 13 persons Monday from high in the University of Texas tower after slaying his wife and mother with knife and gun.
In an hour and a half of terror in the Texas capital, he also wounded 31 persons.
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Two policemen ended the carnage by climbing to a platform above the sniper, Charles Joseph Whitman, 24, and killing him with six shots from a revolver and two blasts from a shotgun loaded with deer slugs.
Counting the sniper, the dead totaled 15. A sixteenth victim was the unborn child of a woman who was wounded. She was in her eighth month of pregnancy.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...ooting-n620556
Not trying to be a fearmonger but it's better to take precautions today. 
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