By Tom Morphet

Only a few hundred feet from the student union where the Michigan State University shooter killed his third victim, a college student from Haines huddled in a darkened classroom with nine others for four hours, listening to a police scanner and texting loved ones to send prayers.

“The union is very close to the music building and to (my dorm),” Mark Davis, a 20-year-old sophomore, told the CVN Tuesday. “We were very worried at that point.”

Davis was rehearsing with seven other jazz trumpeters in the university’s music building around 8:30 p.m. local time when they heard sirens. One of the students with a police-scanner app on his phone learned a shooter was roaming the campus and that a person was shot at the union.

After initially hunkering down, the eight found their way to a nearby classroom with a locking door, where – joined by two other students in the building – they piled up electric pianos as a barricade, turned off the lights and lowered window shades.

The university sent out a message to students and faculty, advising them to “run, hide, or fight.” The nine men and one woman decided to stay put and started looking at how they might fashion usable weapons from music stands. “We couldn’t play music or do anything loud. All we had to do was look at our phones.”

Soon the students were following the story playing out around them on national newscasts and social media.

But a half-dozen rumors also arrived by phone and text. Someone said there were two or three shooters at different locations around campus. Someone said vans were unloading bombs at loading docks. Someone said shooters were pulling fire alarms – or posing as police – to lure students out of hiding.

“Everyone was on lockdown and everyone was on their phones. That’s what led to the rumors,” Davis said. “Someone would hear a noise and start screaming… There were a lot of false reports that made it more complicated than it needed to be, but which were very understandable,” Davis said. “It was crazy, for sure.”

Because of the rumors, “we weren’t going to open that door for anybody,” Davis said.

Around 12:30 p.m., a university official went on YouTube to announce that the threat was over. (The gunman was found dead a distance from the campus.)

“It was a long time to not eat, drink or go to the bathroom. One guy had a water bottle and used that to go to the bathroom,” Davis said.

During those long four hours, Davis said his worries were tempered by the fact that he was with friends, people he trusted to be safe. He’d also received texts from family members in Haines and other friends that they were praying for him.

“I was really glad to hear the prayers and concern from people in Haines, everyone wanting the best,” he said.

Davis said he believes he knows one of the five students critically injured in the shootings, a junior named Troy who sings with him in a practice choir. Davis also frequents the student union to study and buy snacks.

The killings have brought home to him the danger of mass shootings, he said. “Walking around campus I don’t feel any more danger than I was feeling before, but this opens my eyes to how real this kind of danger can be. It’s definitely shocking for everybody here.”

MSU is located about three miles from downtown Lansing, a city of 110,000 that’s not always safe. The university routinely sends students alerts about crime in the area, Davis said. His dorm and the union sit on the border of the campus, directly adjacent to the city.

“People tell us to be cautious. They tell us to walk at night with other people. There’s crime but there’s been nothing like this before,” Davis said.

Davis’ mother, Holly Davis, said this week she wasn’t distraught during the four-hour ordeal. “I guess I thought Mark would be alright.” She mentioned her confidence in her son’s judgment as well as a prayer chain in Haines that launched quickly after news of the shooter broke.

“It’s been overwhelming all the love and concern that’s been coming in,” including offers from Haines-connected friends who live near MSU to take in her son for a few days, she said.

In the meantime, classes have been canceled until Monday and music students can’t get to instruments that are in locked buildings. A concert where Mark Davis was scheduled to play a solo Thursday won’t happen and he’ll miss a deadline for sending a recording of his music to a summer music festival.

“Hopefully, the music festivals will understand I can’t get in to record right now,” he said this week.