This 1999 television news segment retells the story of the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas at Austin amid the reopening of the Main Building observation deck to the public. Larry Weidman and Jim Cummins produced the story for the NBC News Bureau in Dallas. Cummins speaks with several individuals about their experience of the tragedy, including former Austin police officer Ramiro Martinez and survivor Cheryl Botts Dickerson. UT President Larry Faulkner explains the importance of reopening the observation deck to the public in spite of its sordid past. Broadcast on The Today Show on September 16, 1999, the segment aired alongside coverage of another mass shooting in Texas. The day before, a shooter opened fire inside Fort Worth’s Wedgwood Baptist Church. Seven people were killed and seven others were injured.
On the morning on August 1, 1966, 25-year-old former student Charles Whitman ascended to the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin Main Building with multiple weapons and 700 rounds of ammunition and began shooting indiscriminately on persons below. The rampage ended 96 minutes later, when Austin police officers Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy, alongside University Co-op employee Allen Crum, reached the observation deck and shot Whitman dead. Whitman, a former Marine sharpshooter, killed 14 people and injured 31 on campus. He had earlier murdered his mother, Margaret Elizabeth Whitman, and wife, Kathleen.
TFC 1980s 1980’s Austin Travis County television tv television news tv news news report
| news footage reporter journalist journalism NBC News NBC NBC News Bureau news story Larry Weidman Weidman, Larry
| Jim Cummins Cummins, Jim University of Texas at Austin UT Austin UT University of Texas UT Tower University of Texas Tower Main Building UT Tower shooting
| Tower shooting Charles Whitman Whitman, Charles mass shooting campus shooting Today Show observation deck campus college campus university campus
| college university Mike Cox Cox, Mike Ramiro Martinez Martinez, Ramiro Houston McCoy McCoy, Houston Allen Crum Crum, Allen
| Gary Lavergne Lavergne, Gary Larry Faulkner Faulkner, Larry Cheryl BOtts Botts, Cheryl Cheryl Botts Dickerson Dickerson, Cheryl Botts
|