President of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union, Jared Brown, was “extremely saddened,” by the recent shootings at the University of Alberta and said he’ll be contacting the U of A’s students’ union to show them support.

“I haven’t been able to meet with the U of A union yet, but I will be reaching out to them when I go back to work tomorrow,” said Brown.

“I’m going to send them an email and express my concern for them and just say, ‘I hope you guys are doing well’ and let them know that the University of Saskatchewan has their back and see if there’s anything we can do in a more formal or informal sense.”

Brown said even though the incident happened on a campus in the province next door, as a student body president it still resonates strongly with him.

“It makes you think,” said Brown. “It freaks you out that something like that can actually happen. It could happen anywhere.”

Brown also said the recent shooting will influence some of the questions he asks while sitting on the hiring committee for the new director of Campus Safety.

“I think now new questions are going to be raised–‘how is our text service working? Are we able to get the word out to the student’s quickly?’ … Hopefully we can look at the things that we’re doing right, right now, and if they’re not up to speed, we may have to take another look at all of the practices on how we keep people safe.”

The shootings were said to have happened during the armed robbery of a G4S armored vehicle at the U of A’s HUB mall. Three guards, Michelle Shegelski, Brian Ilesic and Eddie Rejano were killed and a fourth, Matthew Schuman, was seriously injured.

The man charged with the murders, a 21-year old Travis Baumgartner was recently apprehended at the U.S. border following what the Edmonton Police Service called an “intense 36-hour manhunt.”

G4S, said in a statement they “applauded” the Edmonton Police Service and other agencies that helped in him being taken into custody and will continue to work with them throughout the investigation.