When Charles Whitman aimed at innocent people through the scope of his rifle on Aug. 1, 1966, the senseless act impacted people outside the University of Texas and Austin.
From a psychological standpoint, the assault from atop the UT Tower was also an assault on society when it came to a sense of safety in public places.
“This crime probably changed law enforcement practices more than any other single crime committed by an individual in American history. It brought about SWAT teams,” A Sniper in the Tower author Gary Lavergne said.
News reports following Charles Whitman's attack revealed an arsenal of seven guns, 700 rounds of ammunition, knives and a hatchet.
"We learned a very valuable and expensive lesson in Austin. The shoes that the officers had on were not adequate. The clothes they had on were not adequate. The communications gear was not adequate The fire arms - it's the literal truth - Charles Whitman was better armed at the time than the Austin Police Department,” Lavergne said.
Whitman was gunned down in the northwest corner of the Tower’s observation deck after a grueling 96-minute siege.
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Societal impact
Charles Whitman’s shooting spree changed society’s sense of innocence in Austin and beyond.
 
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The Austin Police Department was criticized for its handling of the shooting. How could a man be allowed to shoot at will for more than an hour and a half with no plan in place to stop such a situation? Why did Whitman have high-powered rifles, but police did not? What about the lack of communication among officers that day? Fair questions, but perhaps unfair criticism at the time.
Lavergne said the massacre probably changed law enforcement practices more than any other single crime committed by an individual in American history.
"You've got to realize it was 1966. You did not have those hand held radios that you see people on television nowadays, you know, speaking directly to the station. Once you got out of your patrol car, you were on your own," former APD officer Ramiro Martinez said.
An officer's weapon in 1966 was meant for short range situations. It took civilians to initially slow Whitman down after the first 20 minutes of his attack.
"I was running toward the South Mall, and while running, once in a while somebody would shoot, and I'd look to see if I could recognize if it was an officer, and actually it was a civilian who had a deer rifle or some type of weapon shooting up at the Tower," Martinez said.
In the days and years to follow, the emotional impact the Tower shooting had on American society cannot be understated. Nothing like this happened in a public setting before. It just didn't seem possible.
"He was the first to target strangers and kill them. And with that we lost some sense of security in public places. We're more afraid now of streets and sidewalks than we used to be, and more afraid of parks and public places than we used to be, and I think this was the beginning of that," Lavergne said.
“An event like that has a profound effect on people. And for some people it's really devastating in terms of difficulty sleeping and so forth. One thing that we find is that traumas often bring people together. It creates a sense of community," James Pennebaker of the UT Department of Psychology said.
After the shooting, Austin was in many ways a big "small town" that embodied that "sense of community." As the years passed, Austin became much bigger, and so, it seems, did our nation's traumas.
But through it all emerged individuals who do great things, like Clif Drummond, the student body president who helped drag some of the wounded to safety as Whitman fired for what seemed like an eternity.
"And we saw it in New York City, obviously. And we saw it in D.C. We saw it on the airplanes on Flight 93. The ordinary citizen, I believe, in this country does care very much about their brothers and their sisters<" Drummond said. "We really are each other's keeper, and we have that kind of responsibility."
As the campus "came under fire" that day in 1966, so many individuals "came through" for others, desperately trying to match Whitman's arsenal with their compassion.
