What looked like a normal rainy morning turned into something different for the Binghamton University community on Friday, April 3, when 41-year-old Jiverly Wong stormed into the American Civic Association and killed 13 people.

Ayal Tirosh, a senior philosophy, politics and law major at BU, was sleeping in his room at 92 Front St. when the shooting took place.

His house was less than a block away.

Tirosh awoke to text messages and missed phone calls from people asking if he was all right.

“I had no idea what was going on,” Tirosh said. “I looked outside my window and there were a lot of cops, the SWAT team, lots of people with big rifles.”

For Jason Castaneda, a junior geography major who also lives at 92 Front St., the whole situation was hectic.

Castaneda was at work when the shooting occurred, and returned home to hear sirens.

“At first we didn’t think anything of it. There’s always cops and sirens in the morning and at night,” he said. “At the time, we didn’t know how dangerous it was.”

When he and his housemates saw people come out of the building, cops and news vans rushing to the scene and the FBI pulling up, however, they realized it was something different.

He and his housemates stopped what they were doing, Castaneda said, and sat watching the news.

“We were just like, wow, how is this happening. This is right down the street from us,” he said. “We couldn’t believe that this happened.”

Once everything calmed down and it was reported that the situation was under control and taken care of, Castaneda said, people began to finish packing and getting ready to leave for spring break. He stayed until the next day, and saw news vans parked outside throughout the night.

Reporters from CNN, Fox, MSNBC and more were at the scene, he said.

Tirosh and Castaneda’s house is across the intersection from the American Civic Association, which is located at 131 Front St.

Paul Liggieri, a senior political science major who lives at 66 Front St., woke up to a bomb squad driving by his house. Liggieri turned his TV on, only to see his block on the screen.

“It was complete mayhem,” Liggieri said, describing the police cars, ambulances and choppers that showed up at the scene. People standing at the edge of the street were frantic, he added.

“You see this in movies and on TV,” he said. “To have it happen in front of your eyes is something that leaves you in absolute awe.”

Liggieri said what upset him most was that the people hurt were individuals who were obeying and respecting the laws of the United States, and trying to assimilate themselves into the culture.

According to Liggieri, he now slows down every time he drives by the American Civic Association building.

“It has significance for all the wrong reasons,” he said.

The tragedy allowed the community to unite, Liggieri said, and can bring us all together.

University President Lois DeFleur said she remembers that Friday vividly.

“Ironically several of us were with a wonderful group of international students and we were talking to them about their experiences at this University,” she said. “They were so positive and they were so enthusiastic, and then we began to hear that there were some very horrific things happening.”

DeFleur said they were immediately worried, as they knew BU often participated in cultural celebrations at the American Civic Association.

“When we heard it was the American Civic Association, I just felt a knot in my stomach because I knew that so many people who are a part of our community go there to improve their English or [attend] cultural celebrations to learn to be citizens,” she said.

“Before we even knew exactly what had happened, we were already at the University calling the international students and scholars services. We were talking to our University because we knew this would take a terrible toll on this University community, and indeed it has,” DeFleur added.

A Pipe Dream editor — and others in the student body — received a a text message alert at 2:15 p.m., hours after the shooting began, which warned students to avoid Main and Front Streets because of the shooting.

“Our University Police Department has a good relationship with the Binghamton Police and worked closely with them on the day of this terrible incident as well as the days following, which has allowed us to share the appropriate information with our campus community through vehicles such as Dateline, B-Line and text messaging,” said University Spokeswoman Gail Glover.