A Michigan State University professor who was teaching when a gunman opened fire in his classroom on Monday said lawmakers “would be shamed into action” if they witnessed the “horrendous” attack.
Marco Díaz-Muñoz said he heard a loud noise before the shooter entered the classroom from the back door, shooting “at least 15” rounds before he went back into the hallway in Berkey Hall.
“I could see this figure, and it was so horrible because when you see someone who’s totally masked, you don’t see their face, you don’t see their hands ― it was like seeing a robot,” Díaz-Muñoz told CNN in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Díaz-Muñoz was teaching a Cuban literature course in classroom 114 at Berkey Hall, the first location the gunman targeted before moving on to the university’s student union.
Three students were killed in the attack: Alexandria Verner, Arielle Anderson and Brian Fraser. Five others were severely wounded and remain hospitalized. The gunman, who police identified as Anthony McRae, later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Díaz-Muñoz said Verner and Anderson were students in his class.
“These two kids that died were just nice kids, serious students, both of them,” he said.
Once the gunman exited the classroom, Díaz-Muñoz recalled throwing himself at the door and urging his students to try to break the windows so they could escape the building.
Some stayed behind to help those who were shot by keeping their hands on their wounds to prevent them from bleeding out.
“They were heroic because they could have escaped through the windows,” he said. “They stayed, helping their classmates.”
Díaz-Muñoz said the scene of the attack as “horrendous,” adding: “I’ve never seen so much blood.”
He called on congressional leaders to take action on mental health and gun control to prevent such tragedies from happening.
“I think if those senators or lawmakers saw what I saw, not just hear statistics, they would be shamed into action,” Díaz-Muñoz told CNN.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the leading voices in the Senate on regulating guns, on Thursday reintroduced legislation calling for background checks for all gun sales. Currently, criminal background checks are only required for sales by licensed dealers.
Police on Thursday said they recovered two handguns from McRae, both of which were owned legally but weren’t registered, according to The Washington Post.
Murphy told HuffPost that background checks are “the holy grail of gun policy” and are incredibly popular with Americans.
However, Republican lawmakers, and even some Democrats, are not on board with Murphy’s plan. That, coupled with the fact that the GOP controls the House of Representatives, means the bill is unlikely to go anywhere.
Congress last year passed some gun reform measures, including enhancing background checks for buyers between 18 and 21 years old.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Congress owes it to those grieving in Michigan and across the country to pass “commonsense gun law reforms,” including on background checks.