USD Magazine Summer 2021

CLASS NOTES USD MAGAZINE

K A T I E G O N Z A L E Z

[ u n f a t h o m a b l e ]

T u r n i n g p a i n a n d t r a uma i n t o a c t i o n STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY SAFETY

it sounded like a busted speaker.” Then he saw the panic of the people on stage. “I knew some- thing was wrong when the nois- es didn’t stop. Security told us to move away and I knew that wherever we were at that mo- ment wasn’t safe.” It was chaos. “We all got separated, which was scary. I remember trying to stay low. I remember tapping my friends around me and saying, ‘We need to move, we need to get out of here.’ Once I made it out of the tent, I turned around

W

by Julene Snyder

fan of country music, I really liked that community; it was so diverse and dynamic, with people from all different backgrounds.” So when he got a call in San Diego — where he’d since relo- cated — to join a few of his old pals who were planning to go to the Route 91 Harvest Music

hen Marcus Friedman ’21 (JD) was invited to meet up with a group

Festival in the fall of 2017, he saw it as an opportunity to spend some quality time together. “It was a three-day festival, and we were going for the full weekend,” he says. But on the third night, the unimaginable occurred. “All of a sudden, we started hearing this rapid noise;

of friends from his undergraduate years in Las Vegas, he thought it sounded like great fun. “We all used to meet regularly at a country bar in Boston,” he re- calls. “And even though I’m not a

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