{"id":13740,"date":"2016-08-23T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T20:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=films&p=13740"},"modified":"2025-05-20T11:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T18:15:10","slug":"tower","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/tower\/","title":{"rendered":"TOWER"},"content":{"rendered":"

On what seemed like a typical summer day, August 1, 1966, a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. When the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll included 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a shaken nation left trying to understand. Using a unique blend of historical archival footage, interviews and rotoscope animation, <\/span>TOWER<\/i><\/b> reveals the action-packed, untold stories of the witnesses, heroes, and survivors of America\u2019s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.<\/span><\/p>\n

TOWER <\/span><\/i>explores this untold history through the first-person stories of seven specific characters: two students who were shot, the two police officers who ended the siege, two civilians who inserted themselves into the story to provide aid to victims and police, and the KTBC TV and radio reporter who broadcast live from the scene for more than an hour and a half, and whose broadcast was picked up nationally, bringing the events in Austin to listeners around the nation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Seamlessly slipping from character to character, <\/span>TOWER<\/span><\/i> unfolds as a moment-by-moment re-telling of the events of the day, highlighting the fear, confusion, and visceral realities of the shooting rampage. After the gunfire subsides, the story shifts to examine the immediate aftermath for these individuals and for society. Finally, <\/span>TOWER<\/span><\/i> steps out of the shadow of history to reveal the subjects as they are in the present day, exploring the legacy of the shooting through the eyes of the survivors of a story they’ll never forget, but in some cases had not talked about for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On what seemed like a typical summer day, August 1, 1966, a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. When the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll included 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a shaken nation left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1245],"class_list":["post-13740","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-crime"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTOWER | 1966 University of Texas Shooting Survivors & Stories | Independent Lens | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"TOWER, a documentary mixing animation and live-action, is the story of America's first mass school shooting, at the University of Texas, Austin, 1966.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/tower\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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