Students by the dozens, bundled against a November chill, wrote messages of remembrance on the University of Virginia’s landmark Beta Bridge Wednesday afternoon, three days after a gunman killed three football players in a shooting spree and wounded two other students just a few steps away.
“Even if you didn’t know the victims, you know people who know them,” Samantha Simmons, a second-year student, said. She purchased flowers from Trader Joe’s in the morning to place on the bridge, a landmark that has been University students’ informal billboard since the 1970s. “It’s such a nice and beautiful thing for everyone to be together during this time and to see the community come together.”