HITTING HOME: Hill residents react to nearby shooting

Engineering freshman Rana Mitra didn't expect that witnessing a shooting through his dormitory window would be part of his first-year experience at Penn. The Hill House resident watched the shootings Sunday afternoon near 33rd and Walnut streets -- which left one person dead and three people wounded, including one University student -- from his fourth-floor window. The violence followed the Philadelphia Public League high school boys basketball championship at the Palestra. "Just a few days ago I was saying to myself that Philly isn't all that bad -- it's just got a bad rep," Mitra said, adding that seeing someone "gunned down" outside his window changed his opinion of the city. The shootings hit close to home for Hill House residents, many of whom witnessed the incident and questioned their own safety -- especially since a bullet could have conceivably flown through a window into the five-story dormitory. Hill House staff members have been meeting with students since Sunday's incident to discuss fears or questions regarding the shooting. Last night, about a dozen residents and graduate fellows met with approximately 10 administrators -- representing the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life, the Department of Public Safety and Counseling and Psychological Services -- in Hill's Upper East Lounge to discuss the shootings. University Chaplain William Gipson also participated in the informal meeting. Mitra's window overlooks the Blauhaus, where a College senior working on a project inside was struck in the lower thigh by a bullet that made its way through the Fine Arts building's plywood walls. "That was pretty concerning," Mitra said. "It could've come through my window and hit me." But Hill Faculty Master Jim O'Donnell said the Blauhaus incident does not raise concerns about bullets flying through Hill's windows, noting that many of the windows are relatively small. "If you look at Hill, our windows are not huge," said O'Donnell, a Classical Studies professor who is also vice provost for information systems and computing. "Sometimes that's a negative, but sometimes that's a positive." College freshman Amy Strain, whose lives on the street level, said she doesn't feel any less safe than she did before Sunday. "Nobody is really upset," Strain said, recalling a discussion led by her graduate fellow Sunday night. "We all feel it's a random incident that's unlikely to happen again." She did add, however, that "people were kind of freaked out by the fact that a bullet could go through our windows." Hill Graduate Fellow Sanjay Udani stressed that "the bigger concern is about the event itself." "If it's consistently causing problems, why is the event still being held at Penn?" asked Udani.