The Killing Of Mia Henderson-Part One

When I first heard the news about a stabbing that took place in the early hours of Wednesday, September 5th in a dorm at the University Of Arizona, the details were few and far between. My first instinct was to call a friend of mine that I had been working with since her senior year in high school. Although the reports had stated that the girls involved in the altercation were both 18, my instincts and worrisome nature got the better of me, and I left her a text message asking if she was okay, and what I had heard that the news was reporting. She assured me she was 'fine', but had seen a police car in the area. Our conversation continued throughout the morning, off and on. In one text message, she recalled walking past the Graham-Greenlee Dormitory saying she saw 'a cop standing by the door'.

The majority of the students were either oblivious or only heard that there was a stabbing. In a text message from my friend around 11:30 am, she stated :

"I actually didnt know what happened until u
said something."

She seemed shocked to find out that the girl, Mia Henderson, was dead.

Message boards on the local online newspapers have commenter's questioning if the U of A did enough to alert students as to what had occurred in the dorm. The stabbing here was described by UAPD as "isolated and contained". Some made comparisons to the Virginia Tech killings, also in the beginning, described in a similar manner. Luckily, it turned out that it was an isolated incident. But the parallels are hard to ignore, especially in the beginning when no one knew what was going on. It's chilling to think what "could have" happened.

Did the U of A do enough to inform students of what was happening at Graham-Greenlee? I don't know. There was an e-mail alert sent out to students, and from what I can gather, the students are responsible for checking their campus e-mail accounts for these types of alerts. But is an e-mail really enough in the times that we live in? The times where "isolated" incidents sometimes turn into larger tragedies?

NOTE: This is Part One of a series about the tragic death of Mia Henderson.