There was a sea of color on the HUB lawn for the celebration of the Hindi festival of Holi on Saturday. Students spent the afternoon dousing each other with colored water and powders to observe the celebration of the Colors of Unity and Brotherhood. Everyone was having a great time dousing each other in every color of the rainbow until a paintball team arrived at the HUB at started to open fire on the fifty or so Holi participants.
The paint ball team Five More Bobybags, from South Central West Virginia State University, were supposed to be at the University’s semi-annual paintball tournament which was being held on the IM fields. The SCWVSU team was running late and were apparently still belligerently drunk from the night before, showed up at the HUB lawn in the middle of the Holi festivities. Kevin Pierson, a freshman Engineering major, said it was horrific.
“They just drove up on the lawn, completely missing the parking lot and almost hit a group of people filling up water balloons. You could smell the alcohol on them before they even got out of the car.” It was reported by local authorities that one team member blew an astounding .316, while in custody after the incident. “They then stumbled out of their van and without hesitation just opened fire on everyone. It was awful. I can’t sit down without using this inflatable ring.” Pierson seemed like he was still in shock and waddled away in what looked like an immense amount of pain.
Five More Bodybags continued to fire on the students for 5 long minutes until the police arrived. The authorities estimated that there were anywhere from 5000-6000 paintballs fired at the fifty or so participants, 28 of which have been checked into Penn State Hershey Medical Center. The welts of the victims have been compared to that of wounds attained from a wolverine attack. No further information has been released on the victims.
When we asked fellow paintball players at the tournament what they thought about the incident, they couldn’t believe it. Stephen Barker, a junior Finance major, said he thought something was wrong. “We heard a lot of commotion coming from campus but we didn’t think anything of it. South Central did miss check in by three hours though…”
There is still one fugitive member of the SCWVSU team, Billy Joe Southerlan, that is still rumored to be in State College. If you have any information on his whereabouts you are encouraged to contact the anonymous tip line.
