EAST LANSING, Michigan, Feb. 13, 2023 (UPI) — A gunman opened fire Monday night at Michigan State University, killing three people and injuring five others, before turning the weapon on himself, authorities said.
Students, faculty and staff on campus early Tuesday were sheltering-in-place when police hunting the suspect announced he had been found dead.
“There is no longer a threat to campus and the shelter-in-place has been lifted,” MSU Police and Public Safety tweeted.
Chris Rozman, interim deputy chief of MSU police, told reporters during a press conference held at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday that it is confirmed that the suspect, described as a 43-year-old Black man, is deceased from what appears to have been a self-inflicted gunshot.
“This truly has been a nightmare that we’re living tonight,” Rozman said. “We are relieved to no longer have an active threat on campus, while we realize that there is so much healing that will need to take place after this.”
Police received multiple 911 calls at 8:18 p.m. Monday of a shooting near the university’s social science Berkey Hall building on the East Lansing campus. A second shooting was reported about an hour later at the nearby MSU Union.
Victims were tended to at both crime scenes, police said before later confirming three people had died — two at Berkey Hall and one at the union. Five people who sustained injuries were in critical condition at Sparrow Hospital early Tuesday.
The identities of the victims were being withheld early Tuesday out of respect for the families, while investigators were working to name the suspect and learn his connection to the community.
During a second press conference at 1:30 a.m., Rozman identified the suspect as a 43-year-old man with no affiliation to the university.
“We have no idea why he can to campus to do this tonight,” he said.
Authorities were also withholding how they came to find the suspect, but Rozman said that it followed him being “confronted by law enforcement” at a off-campus location that is now being treated as a crime scene.
MSU police had issued a shelter-in place order at about 8:30 p.m. as hundreds of law enforcement officers descended upon the campus while the suspect, who was last seen leaving the union on foot, was being sought.
“Secure-in-Place immediately. Run, Hide, Fight,” the college’s website said earlier in the evening. “Run means evacuate away from danger if you can do so safely, Hide means to secure-in-place and Fight means protect yourself if no other option.”
Police had described the man as Black, “shorter in stature,” wearing red shoes, a jean jacket and a navy baseball cap with a lighter brim.
An image of the suspect taken from a surveillance camera was released about an hour before his body was found.
During the search, parents of students were urged to stay away from campus.
“For parents, I understand. I can only imagine the emotion that’s involved right now. It’s going to help us and it’s going to help our response and it’s going to help us to identify the shooter, the less people that are on campus at this point,” Rozman had said during an earlier press conference.
Campus police said the campus will be closed for the next 48 hours.
Teresa K. Woodruff, interim president of MSU, said at the latest news conference that the two days will give students, faculty and staff time to “think and to grieve and to be together.”
“And this Spartan community, this family, will come back together.”
The mass shooting is the 67th to plague the United States this year, according to The Gun Violence Archive, and occurred on the fifth anniversary of a shooting at Florida’s Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead in 2018.
“Parents across Michigan are on pins and needles calling their kinds tonight, checking in on them and telling them they love them. It doesn’t have to be this way,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tweeted. “This is a uniquely American problem.”
