Floods, Shootings, and Assassinations
This summer has seen a lot of death and destruction, including the first political assassinations since 1968, when Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy was killed, and the largest Texas floods in 100 years.
On September 10, 2025, conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University during a campus speaking event for the non-profit organization Turning Point USA. He was shot around 12:30 pm and pronounced dead two hours later.
This act of political violence was preceded by others in the Summer of 2025.
On June 14, 2025, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated in her own home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, 8.5 miles away from Champlin. In the same event, Hortman’s husband was killed with her. Earlier that morning, Minnesota senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were both attacked and injured in their home in Champlin, Minnesota, just before 2 am. Both Hoffman and his wife survived the attack. As the perpetrator, Vance Luther Boelter, was charged with two counts of attempted second degree murder, the attack was deemed deliberate and intentional.
Junior English Major Elizabeth Grant is from St. Paul, Minnesota, 25 minutes away from Brooklyn Park. She said, “The state rep assassination was just incredibly shocking and felt very close to home, particularly because one of my family’s close friends was good friends with Melissa Hortman. So she was experiencing personal grief as well as the grief we were all experiencing for our state, and that kinda took the event out of the news for me and made it really real.”
Along with Grant, Junior English and Biology major Elinor True is also from St. Paul.
She said: “For me, the assassination felt like another blow to our stability and peace for every Minnesotan, and it also brought up a lot of memories of the 2020 riots about George Floyd, when we watched our city burn. When there’s that kind of violence so close to home it takes away from your sense of security, and I think we all felt that way regardless of your political alignment.”
Both Hoffman and Hortman were members of the Democratic party-affiliated Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, or DFL.
The shooter possessed a hit-list with over 70 intended targets, including other Democrat politicians, abortion rights activists, and abortion providers.
The state of Minnesota continued to be subject to gun violence this summer.
On August 27th, a mass shooting took place at the Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis. The shooting took place near the home of Elizabeth Grant. See the Commentary section for her reflections on this event.
Classes for the University of Dallas Fall term began on Wednesday, August 27th.
In the wake of the political violence of the month of June, Central Texas experienced massive flooding in July. Beginning on July 4th, the Guadalupe river began flooding in Kerr County. Due to rainfall and the river’s rising water levels, flash flooding continued for days after, through July 12th. The flooding took the lives of 20 young girls at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp, with at least 135 deaths in total over the entire week.
Two girls from Dallas, Blair and Brooke Harber, died in the flooding. They attended the Saint Rita Catholic Community school, 10 miles from the University of Dallas. Their mother Annie is also a teacher at the school.
Dr. Sanford, President of UD and his family are parishioners at Saint Rita. The Sanford family was in Rome for all of July, where Dr. Sanford taught the Human Person during Summer session II of the Rome program.
His wife, Rebecca, said: “We were traveling in Greece with the Summer Rome program when we heard the terrible news. The unity in prayer and support for the family from the parish and diocese was evident to us at the time and quite palpable upon our return in August. Saint Rita is an active, vibrant parish and school community in which the Harbers are an integral part.”
Out of many UD students who were contacted about potential family members and friends who were affected by the floods, no connections are currently known.