Feb. 14 (UPI) — Police on Tuesday identified 43-year-old Anthony McRae as the person who killed three students and wounded five others in a shooting at Michigan State University on Monday night.
Michigan State University Police interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said during a news conference Tuesday morning that McRae had no affiliation with the university.”He was not a student, faculty, staff, current or previous,” he said.
Rozman added that McRae was found — dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound — after a tip.
Police received multiple 911 calls about a shooting near the university’s social science building, Berkey Hall, on the East Lansing campus at 8:18 p.m. Monday and a second shooting at the nearby MSU Union.
Authorities have not discovered a motive for the shootings.
“We have no idea why he came to campus tonight,” Rozman said.
Authorities also said that they had found a note in McRae’s pocket that made threats to two public schools in Ewing, N.J. The Ewing Police Department said that McRae had ties to the area, and out of an abundance of caution, Ewing Public Schools were closed for the day.
“Officers from Ewing and surrounding agencies were stationed at each closed public school as well as other schools in the township,” police said. “After further investigation, it has been determined that the incident is isolated to Michigan and there is no threat to Ewing schools.”
The three who were killed and the five who were injured were Michigan State students, Rozman said.
Denny Martin, chief medical officer at E.W. Sparrow Hospital, said the five injured students remained in critical condition.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded for change at a news conference on Tuesday morning.
“This is a uniquely American problem,” she said. “Too many of us scan rooms for exits when we enter them. We plan who that last text or call would go to. We should not, we cannot, accept living like this.”
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., noted that Tuesday marked the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead in 2018. Michigan also experienced a shooting at Oxford High School in 2021 that killed four.
“As a representative of Oxford, Mich., I cannot believe that I am here again doing this 15 months later,” Slotkin said. “And I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools.”
President Joe Biden said in a statement that “too many American communities have been devastated by gun violence” as he called on lawmakers to act.
“Congress must do something and enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing loopholes in our background check system, requiring safe storage of guns and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets,” Biden said. “Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America.”
Campus police said MSU would remain closed through Tuesday.
Interim East Lansing City Manager Randy Talifarro said city offices would be closed to the general public on Tuesday while essential city employees would continue to report to work.
