The 20-year-old Bethlehem native said the first thing he did when he heard there was a shooting on campus was call his parents.
As soon as Ben Kraft heard that shots were fired at an officer on the MIT campus, he knew what he had to do.
Kraft immediately called his parents in Bethlehem, even before a campus-wide notification went out for students to stay inside.
“We’ve learned that this week,” said Kraft, 20. “Everyone has said, 'Remember to let your parents know you’re OK.'”
Minutes later, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a warning to students to stay indoors. Campus officer Sean Collier, 26, had been shot and killed on campus about 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Authorities believe the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing case shot him while he was in a patrol cruiser.
Kraft said students first heard of the incident on the police scanner.
“That’s what people are doing this week,” Kraft said, of listening in on police activity on emergency radio.
The MIT sophomore said he went to sleep when he thought things had calmed down.
“I fell asleep at the point of which I thought it might be over. And when I woke up, it clearly was not,” Kraft said.
Eventually, MIT lifted the campus lockdown — it seemed then that the suspects were in Watertown, Mass., Kraft said.
Residents in Boston have been ordered to stay indoors while a massive manhunt for 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev takes place. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a shootout with police in Watertown.
Kraft, a math major who graduated from Liberty High School in 2011, said he knows he’s in an urban area — but he’s never feared for his safety because of that.
“When I look out my window ... I know I'm in a city, but that’s not something you think about,” he said.
Kraft was not downtown Monday during the Boston Marathon, but said when word of the explosion traveled to the school, everyone was glued to the news. He said his roommate’s father had crossed the finish line only 15 minutes prior to the blasts. Thankfully, everyone he knew made it out safely, Kraft said.
And now they wait.
Many students in his dorm are watching the news, some are trying to keep their mind off everything with a game of chess — and still others are trying to catch up on sleep, Kraft said.
He hopes all it comes to end soon.
“I hope that in a few days, we will be done with this and life will go on,” Kraft said.
