Daily Egyptian THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
VOL. 99 ISSUE 82
SINCE 1916
No smoking policy: A breath of fresh air DAVID JORDAN | @DavidJordan_DE
Students on campus this fall will be able to breathe easier now that the university has a campus-wide no smoking policy. The new policy went into effect on July 1 in accordance to the Illinois Smoke-Free Campus Act, signed by former Gov. Pat Quinn last year. This legislation requires all state public universities to enforce no smoking policies on their campuses. University Spokeswoman Rae Goldsmith said SIU wants students and faculty members to be mindful of the effects of smoking on themselves and the environment. “SIU is focused on the health and wellbeing of its students and staff,” Goldsmith said. Those who use e-cigarettes and vape pens will have no such luck either, as those are also banned under the new policies. Kyle Dye, a sophomore from Hume studying crop and soil sciences, said he has not smoked or chewed tobacco in roughly a year, and the ban of vapor smoke promotes tobacco use since people will find other ways to get nicotine, unless they choose to break the rules. “I thought about it,” he said. Although the ban covers all of campus — including parking lots — students and faculty members can smoke in their personal vehicles while on university grounds. There will be no designated smoking areas on campus. Dye understands the ban, because secondhand smoke and the litter from cigarette butts is a problem, but thinks there should be an area for smokers. “It doesn’t have to be huge,” Dye said. “It can be a park bench. From my personal experience, I had an officer run up to me and he said, ‘I’m not your dad. I’m not going to tell you what to do. Plus I have better things
Photo Illustration by Holiday Wagner | @HolidayWagnerDE
to worry about than you guys vaping or smoking.’” However, some are in favor of the rule. Alicia Stark, an undecided freshman from Springfield, said she believes the policies will be good for campus. “The university’s new policy will help to clean up the campus’ ground and air.” Even though smoking is now against campus rules, smokers may not see effects of the policy because of a lack of enforcement. There are currently no plans to actively
enforce the ban by university officials. Goldsmith said there could be fines passed down to smokers in the future if they are seen as repeat offenders of the new policy. Goldsmith believes the smoking ban will be a successful one, as there have been no major complaints. Students offended by the smell of smoke should politely ask the person using prohibited products to stop or report the incident to the Department of Public Safety. Students and faculty members trying to
quit smoking and would like help from the university can enroll in smoking cessation programs offered by Student Health Services. Those wishing for more discreet options on quitting can call 1-800-QUIT-NOW, which offers smoking cessation information and a 20 minute counseling session. More information about the new smoking policy can be found at http://www.smokefree. siu.edu/ Aaron Graff contributed to this story.
Fatal shootings of Virginia journalists put horror on TV MATT PEARCE, LEE ROMNEY AND NATALIE SCHACHAR Los Angeles Times
The man gripped a gun as he stood behind members of the news crew, watching them do a live broadcast. The journalists didn’t seem to notice that he had pointed the weapon right at them. On Wednesday morning, as southwestern Virginia television viewers watched on live TV, a WDBJ-TV reporter and her cameraman were shot to death in the middle of their broadcast near Smith Mountain Lake. Police later identified the gunman as Vester Lee Flanagan II, one of the journalists’ former TV station co-workers. The person being interviewed, local Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vicki Gardner, was wounded but was expected to survive. By the time Flanagan, 41, had shot and killed himself after a police chase several hours later, his face and his actions had been widely broadcast on televisions across the nation and on social media. Flanagan, who was black, cited racism and bullying as a motive, though Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said it was “obvious” that Flanagan “was disturbed in some way.”
The shooting was a grotesque moment of television that swiftly appeared on CNN and YouTube. About eight shots were heard as reporter Alison Parker, 24, screamed and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, fell to the ground, and Ward’s camera spun to show a grim-faced man striding forward with a pistol in his hand. When the broadcast feed quickly switched back to a camera at the TV station, it caught a WDBJ-TV anchor gaping in shock, her mouth open, unsure of what she’d just seen. Hours after the 6:45 a.m. shooting, Flanagan — a native of Oakland, Calif., who used to work as a TV reporter at WDBJ-TV under the name Bryce Williams — apparently posted a video on Facebook and Twitter showing the shooting from the gunman’s perspective. The accounts were swiftly taken down, but not before the Twitter account posted messages complaining that Parker and Ward had not treated Flanagan well at the workplace. Station officials said Flanagan had been fired and escorted out of the TV station after a year of clashing with station employees. ABC News reported that someone claiming to be Flanagan had faxed a 23-
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Journalists killed Since 1992, 1,582 journalists have been murdered around the world. In most cases, it has been confirmed that the killing was directly linked to the journalist’s work. 120 100
Journalists killed in the U.S. since 1992: 8
2015: 52
80 60 40 20
1992
1995
2000
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists, AP
page document to the network, which turned it over to authorities, and that Flanagan had called the network almost two hours after the shooting to say that authorities were “after me” and “all over the place.” In the manifesto — titled “A Suicide Note for Friends & Family” — the writer expressed admiration for the Virginia Tech and Columbine High
2005
2010
2015
Graphic: Tribune News Service
School mass shooters. He said he had been the target of racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work. He said his attackers were white females and black men, and disclosed that he was gay. He was motivated, he said, by the Charleston, S.C., church shooting of nine African-Americans by a young white man in an apparent hate crime.
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15,” he wrote. “What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.” Flanagan had bounced in and out of the TV news business for years, compiling a record of tense clashes with his co-workers and allegations of racism. His rage finally took over, according to his social media profiles and former coworkers. “Vester was an unhappy man,” WDBJ-TV station manager Jeffrey A. Marks said on the air Wednesday. “We employed him as a reporter and he had some talent in that respect.” However, Marks said, Flanagan quickly “gathered a reputation as somebody who was difficult to work with. ... He was sort of looking out for people to say things that he could take offense to. And eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him, and he did not take that well and we had to call police to escort him from the building.” For more on this story, please visit www.dailyegyptian.com