Seconded (2000-2004). And I've lived near campus ever since, and nothing like this has happened. Some shootings in Central Square, but never on campus. I'd say this is a pretty big deal.

And HN should care - Stata is full of CS people.

Edit: dates

I went to MIT as an undergrad and on my very first day there, there was a gunfight right outside my dorm window between police and an armed fugitive. Next House was under construction at the time, and the fugitive ran into the construction site and fired back. It was exactly like a scene in a movie.

I'd like to tell you what happened next, but I got down on the floor until the commotion ended.

But yes, this was not a common occurrence.

I think Symmetry and I might recall the same event, in April 2003; a shooting near Random Hall that resulted in death (not a student).

http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N17/17shooting.17n.html

The worst part is it happened during pre-frosh weekend, when admitted high school students were invited to visit and experience MIT for a few days.

A fair number of muggings with knives/guns in Cambridge, though. (I had someone pull a knife on me near the Harvard Bridge Boston side late at night).

"On campus" is kind of a more vague thing with MIT than with some other schools, since it was in the 1990s and before a very open campus in the middle of a city, with a few major roads running through it.

I agree the "on campus" line for MIT can be pretty fuzzy (between the open campus, frats/ILGs across the river in Boston and so on).

That being said, there are more objective measures we could use, such as "made The Tech" (outside the police log), which this already has.

Somewhere around 2004 someone was shot in the head at a restaurant across from Random Hall as part of some drug related dispute. I heard the shot, but thought at first it was part of a video game my friend was playing. And that cook at the student center was stabbed not that long ago in some other dispute not related to students.

While I was there, there were no shootings, but two stabbings. Both by people known to the victims, though, not random acts of violence. Not that that makes it any better or anything. :-/

Me neither, I was there from 1982-1996. There was one knifing on Mem Drive during that period.

Me neither (1994-2000).