STARKVILLE — A week ago today, during the “active shooter” scare on Mississippi State University’s campus, Richard Corey took a picture that went viral.
Of course, there would end up being no “active shooter” and no injuries. But this was before anyone knew that.
This was about mid-morning, during the chaos. Corey, who provides IT support on campus, was in McCain Hall with coworkers.
“I was trying to take some photos of the scene and post them to Twitter,” he said. “Because there was a lot of confusion about what was going on.”
Looking out over the Drill Field, where the reported shooter had been, Corey saw something interesting. With his iPhone 4S, he snapped a picture.
The scene he captured shows, from a distance, a woman who is clearly a member of law enforcement walking down a sidewalk. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead, on something unseen. With a determined but calm air, she walks toward it, in heels, while carrying an assault rifle.
Corey posted the image to Twitter.
When he did, it shot into the social media stratosphere.
It was “retweeted” 1,439 times and “favorited” 1,321 times. Someone with NBC News in New York City contacted Corey, asking if the network could publish it. Strange Brew Coffeehouse in Starkville posted it to its Facebook page, saying, “Never, ever, ever mess with Mississippi.” That post received 4,123 “likes” and was “shared” 2,870 times. A radio station in Jackson also posted it to Facebook, where it received 12,500 “likes” and was shared 7,500 times.
More people passed it along, more people talked about it.
Corey, a former Starkville alderman, said he had no idea the image would take off the way it did. Since the incident on MSU’s campus, though, a few people have commented to him about it.
What they conveyed, Corey said, was that in a time of terror, the image of that woman was empowering.
So who is she?
■ ■ ■
Her name is Virginia Rich.
She is a 15-year veteran with the MSU Police Department, where her rank is sergeant. Before getting into law enforcement, she was the city of Starkville’s first female firefighter.
When she joined MSUPD in 2000, she worked patrol and was a detective. Today she is the department’s accreditation manager and has a second-floor office. When she comes to work, she wears a blazer, pants and heels, and attaches her gold badge to her belt, right beside her Glock 17 pistol. She seems shy, but has a fierce handshake.
Rich is not on Twitter. She began a Facebook account recently because family and friends asked her to, but she doesn’t spend much time on it.
She has seen the picture that made her briefly famous, though. Coworkers showed it to her.
When The Dispatch visited Rich’s office Wednesday and asked her about the picture, a somewhat embarrassed smile crossed her face. In a soft-spoken voice, she explained that while she is grateful for the kind comments, she does not feel she did anything special. She said she was only a small part of the university’s efforts.
Rich was in her office that morning, she said, when she heard the report of a potential “active shooter.” She keeps a radio in her office, and grabbed it. She keeps a bullet-proof vest in her office, too, and she slipped it on. Then she picked up an AR-15 and headed out onto campus.
The Dispatch asked: “What was your goal?”
She said: “Go directly to the scene and neutralize the threat. That’s what I’m trained to do.”
■ ■ ■
These are some things people on social media said about the picture of Rich:
“Glad she has our back!” “You are a true hero.” “Mess with Mississippi and a Mississippi woman in heels is going to mess you up!” “Virginia Rich for president!” “I want to be her!” “Don’t mess with momma bear.” “Mad respect.”
John Brocato, who works at MSU and was on campus during the incident, posted the picture to social media and wrote: “She is a bona fide badass.”
Brocato’s office faces the Drill Field and he saw Rich walking through the scene that day. He said that in the moment, when many unknowns still existed about what was happening, he tasted fear. Then he saw Rich.
“Seeing her at work,” he said, “made me think that, even if the unthinkable happened and we did have an active shooter on campus, she would take care of it.”
Shane Reed, the owner of Strange Brew Coffeehouse, said the picture “simply made us feel safe.”
“It was a pic of a strong woman that obviously stopped in the middle of whatever she was doing to handle business and protect MSU,” Reed said. “You could tell she was striding, not walking. She had a rifle, not a small handgun. She was focused and impressive.”
Corey, too, said he believes people responded to the image because of Rich’s demeanor.
“There was just something about the juxtaposition of her walking down the field, professionally dressed,” he said, “as though she had come from an office, while holding that rifle and maintaining complete calm and control in a tense situation.”
On Wednesday, in her office, when Rich was told about the comments regarding her heels, she laughed.
Moving around in firefighting gear is harder than heels, she said.
At one point in the conversation, The Dispatch relayed to her what people were saying about her inspiring them, about her giving them a sense of empowerment.
Rich, after saying “Thank you,” leaned across her office desk and whispered:
“I was just doing my job.”
William Browning was managing editor for The Dispatch until June 2016.
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