EAST LANSING, Mich. — They came to pray and to support each other through the grief that follows violence. Thousands of mourners crowded outside the Michigan State University Auditorium on Wednesday night to honor the victims of Monday's mass campus shooting.
Braden Hanks, a 2021 MSU graduate, stood alone in the crowd before the vigil began. He was there, he said, because it was his civic duty to return to campus and join the gathering. As others gathered Wednesday night in Clawson and in Grosse Pointe Farms to remember victims in their hometowns, MSU students there said they sought similar solace in the crowd on campus and among friends and family.
Standing on campus, where yellow tape still blocks off areas where the deadly shooting took place, magnified for Hanks the reality of gun violence.
