EAST LANSING, Mich. — Wednesday night, thousands gathered for a vigil around The Rock at Michigan State University to honor the three students who were killed in Monday night's deadly mass shooting: Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner.
Their names were painted across The Rock along with the message, "Always a Spartan."
"They will be Spartans forever," Michigan State Interim President Teresa Woodruff said.
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The vigil started at 6 p.m., but by 5:30 p.m., there were already hundreds of flowers laid at the base of the memorial site.
"We really, really love this place, and you can see it in how we treat one another and how we show up for one another, and I think that's what makes this so much more painful," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said. "Our Spartan community is reeling this week...our hearts break for those lives that were shattered by gun violence."
In the crowd were members of Phi Delta Theta, the fraternity that Fraser was the president of at Michigan State. In addition to the flowers, his fraternity brothers presented their fraternity flag and kneeled at The Rock to pay their respects.
"Campuses, churches, classrooms and communities should not be battlefields," Whitmer said. "It's okay if you feel frustrated, or angry, or sad because we are the only country in the world where guns are the number one killer of young people."
The crowd started lighting candles and raising their camera flash lights in the air as somber music played. Soon, the MSU community hopes, a new day will dawn.
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