Azerbaijan's Virginia Tech

School shootings seem to happen everywhere. Even, as of today, in Baku.

I was in the middle of my Azeri lesson this morning when a colleague came running through the conference room. "There is shooting!" When you live in a place that has been in a frozen conflict for the past twenty-so years, this sentence is particularly chilling.

Two blocks from my office a gunman had entered the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. It is one of the oldest, and most prestigious, universities in the country. And many people were dead.

Over the next few hours news reports--all of them contradictory--started coming out. There was one gunman. There were two. The gunman was African. He was Syrian. He was Georgian. He was a terrorist. There were 3 dead. 7 dead. 13. The gunman was holding students hostage. The gunman had killed himself.

And on it went for the rest of the day. I couldn't keep up with the pace of the rumors or figure out what was really going on. As I continued to check Google News I watched the story spread from Azerbaijan wires to Reuters and then on to Associated Press. Soon everyone was running the story. Or at least one version of it.

I read an article in Slate earlier this month pointing out that April seems to be the month-of-choice for mass killings. Many of the big killing sprees have occurred in April: Waco, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and the Oklahoma City Bombings. I'm not sure whether there is something inherent in April (end of school year) or just coincidence--but either way, I'm positive Azerbaijan is mourning its new membership in the club.