College student from CT shares firsthand experience from Lewiston

“You always say that you never think it’s going to be your town,” said Bates senior and Ivoryton native Ben Conrad. “I always hear that–every single time something like this occurs. And then it is your town.”

On the campus of Lewiston's Bates College, Connecticut native Ben Conrad was just wrapping up football practice with the Bobcats early Wednesday evening.

That’s when his team got the news.

“Our captain in the little huddle at the end of practice said, ‘hey guys, there’s an incident, a shooting,' cause I’m assuming our coach told him and could have relayed the information and just said to stay indoors,” Conrad said.

It wasn’t until the entire Bates campus went on lockdown that Conrad realized the nightmare unfolding in his college town of Lewiston.

“Even throughout the night you could hear sirens going in different places. I remember in practice I heard them going in the end. You could hear a lot of the commotion,” he said.

Conrad said the bowling alley where one of the shootings occurred was a common place for Bates students–even for some of his teammates.

“I have a few buddies on the team that are bowlers, and I don’t know if they were planning on going that night, but I remember hearing them talking about going later this week,” he said.

As Conrad hunkered down, he thought of his younger sister, doing the same across campus.

“She was stuck in her dorm, so as an older brother that was kind of difficult to imagine that she’s not feeling safe,” Conrad said.

Still, nearly 48 hours after the tragedy, the uneasy feeling remains.

“This guy could be in Canada, this guy could be hiding under a boat cover, this guy could be dead. We have no idea and that is kind of scary to think about–fear of the unknown. The only thing we can do right now is pray and hope that nothing else happens, and we find him,” Conrad said.

As of Friday, the school remains on lockdown. All classes and practices have been canceled.