The Hofstra
HEMPSTEAD, NY Volume 83 Issue 4
Chronicle
Tuesday
october 3, 2017
Keeping the hofstra Community informed since 1935
59 dead after deadliest mass shooting in US history
By Katie Krahulik & Jill Leavey NEW S E D I TO R / ASSISTA N T N E WS E D I TO R
As of Monday night, 59 people were confirmed dead in addition to 527 victims injured after the largest mass shooting in modern American history devastated Las Vegas, Nevada. Stephen Paddock – the lone gunman – opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on Sunday, Oct. 1 shortly after 10 p.m. PT, targeting the audience of a Jason Aldean concert near the resort. Genesis Ibarra, a junior journalism major at Hofstra, is a resident of Las Vegas. A haunting message from her best friend sent her into pure terror Monday morning. “My heart started racing as if
I was in the middle of running a mile,” she said. “I was just like sprinting at the thought of who is hurt. Is there somebody I know? Are they dead? Where
are they? What happened? Is anybody trying to help them?” Within minutes, the massacre flooded social media accounts across the country. “It feels
surreal to have your home become a hashtag on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. It’s so weird to think that the place you grew up is now on everybody’s profile picture because that’s their way of dealing with problems nowadays,” Ibarra said. “It’s the thing your parents worry about – to stop you from going to concerts, and then it happens in your hometown, in a place where you’ve gone to a concert.” Jason Aldean was mid-performance Photo courtesy of Flickr shortly after 10 p.m. PT when Stephen Paddock, 64, reportedly shot concert-goers from his 32nd floor hotel room of witnesses began the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
to hear gunshots and see the flashes of gunfire. The concert was just one of several shows scheduled for a three-day festival, Route 91 Harvest, which attracted tens of thousands of country fans to the city. The gunman, Paddock, identified as a 64-year-old resident of Mesquite, Nevada by authorities, is reported to have been in possession of at least 17 guns in his Mandalay Bay hotel room. Nevada does not require gun owners to be licensed or register their firearms. Additionally, there are no limitations on the number of guns an individual can possess. “When events like this happen Continued on A3
College students targeted in financial larceny scams By Michael Ortiz EDITOR - I N - C H I E F
A string of check cashing scams at Farmingdale State College led to Hofstra’s Department of Public Safety issuing a warning to students and revealing that two Hofstra students were victims of a different financial scam last semester. In two separate cases in February and April which are currently under police investigation, a student received a call that a family member was being held hostage and they needed to send money either through Western Union or another source, according to Director of Public Safety Karen O’Callaghan. One of the victims sent $500 to the suspect and the other was asked to send $1,200. “They get a call from, it appears the phone number of a relative or brother – a close relative – they seem to have a lot of information about the person and they say ‘we’ve kidnapped your brother, and if you don’t get this money by this time, he’s gonna get hurt,’” O’Callaghan said. “That’s really scary honestly because you have no idea,” said Alexa
Meachen, a sophomore in the direct entry physician assistant program. “If somebody called me, I think I’d be like ‘no way.’ I would call my mom.” Public Safety sent an email to students on Friday, Sept. 29 making them aware of three larceny incidents at Farmingdale of a different nature. “The suspect uses the student victim’s checking account to commit the larceny,” the statement read. “The suspect will offer to take the victim to his/her bank to assist with cashing a check. On occasion, the checks have not cleared and the bank accounts become frozen.” Two victims from the college reported that they lost $200 and $1,000, while a third gave no money and their account was frozen, according to the statement. O’Callaghan says a similar scam occured at SUNY Old Westbury. Jack Cimorelli, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, said, “I feel like you’re kind of dumb for doing that. Why are you taking a random ass guy to the bank and cashing a check in your name? That’s the sketchiest thing
I’ve ever heard.” “Obviously anytime a stranger comes up and asks you anything about finances or to assist them with doing anything you should question why they’re doing that, because in this day in age with all these issues with people stealing identities and things like that, you should be very cautious of that especially of any kind of information related to your checking and banking accounts,” O’Callaghan said. One of the incidents at Farmingdale occurred at a Chase drive-thru ATM, however O’Callaghan said it was not isolated to any one bank. In addition to warning students of the scam, O’Callaghan also alerted the TD Bank located in the Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center, “so that if something like that is suspicious it will trigger something in their head, to be suspicious if a student is being escorted in by somebody else,” she said. “That’s something you see in movies. I would have no idea what to do, Meachen said. “What people would do for money.”
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Faculty Research Day
A3
Christiana Melninkaitis / Hofstra Chronicle Over 60 projects were presented to students by faculty in annual Faculty Research Day.