Tuskegee University homecoming shooting: 1 dead, multiple people injured in chaotic scene
Tuskegee University homecoming shooting: 1 dead, multiple people injured in chaotic scene
    Posted on 11/10/2024
One person was killed on the campus of Tuskegee University after dozens of shots were fired early Sunday morning after the historically Black university’s 100th homecoming.

The person who was killed was not associated with the university, according to Tuskegee spokeswoman Thonnia Lee.

Several other people, including Tuskegee students, were injured and are receiving treatment at East Alabama Medical Center and Baptist South Hospital. The severity of their injuries was not immediately known.

Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Lt. Jeremy Burkett said the shooting happened at 1:40 a.m. No arrests have been made, but State Bureau of Investigation Special Agents are still in the process of gathering and studying evidence to determine the sequence of events.

He said investigators plan to release another update early Sunday afternoon.

See also: Tuskegee homecoming shooting captured in chilling videos

Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley said “quite a few people” were injured, but he did not know an exact number of the injured. Bentley said he could not yet provide information about the person killed.

A female student was shot in stomach, Tuskegee city Police Chief Mardis said. “I helped load her up.” A male student was shot in the arm and Mardis said he did not have information about the third person injured.

In social media videos, rapid-fire shots are heard as people crouch on the ground and behind cars at West Commons.

City police were on the scene of an unrelated double shooting where two people suffered minor injuries at a Texaco station when officers got the call about the shooting at the West Commons on-campus apartments, Mardis said.

“Some idiots started shooting,” Mardis said of the campus shooting. “You couldn’t get the emergency vehicles in there there were so many people there.”

Tuskegee celebrated its 100th homecoming on Saturday. It played Miles College, who Sunday morning said in a release that “our hearts are with the Tuskegee family as they face the tragic aftermath.”

Emergency responders, along with campus and local law enforcement, secured the scene. The State Bureau of Investigations is conducting an active investigation.

The university is in the process of completing student accountability and notifying parents, according to Lee.

No one is in custody and it was not immediately clear what led to the shooting, Mardis said.

“It’s horrible,” said Mardis, who is the former chief of campus police.

Mardis said he lived in fear of a shooting on campus when he led the university police department.

“I was always on pins and needles when I was there. You see it happen everywhere. It’s happened everywhere else but us.”
Comments( 0 )