Five people were shot and wounded at Morgan State University in Baltimore on Tuesday night, according to authorities.
At around 9:25 p.m., university police “heard discharge and responded to the scene,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said during anews conferenceTuesday after the shooting.
Upon arrival, the Baltimore Police Department discovered five victims with gunshot wounds between the ages of 18 to 22 — four males and one female — with non-life-threatening injuries, Worley said.
MSU Police Chief Lance Hatcher said during the news conference that four of the five victims were students, while the university’s President David Wilson added that the “unfortunate situation erupted” shortly after the coronation of Mister & Miss Morgan State at the Murphy Fine Arts Center for homecoming week.
Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty
Immediately, the departmentissued a warning on X(formerly Twitter): “BPD is on scene of an active shooter situation in the 1700 block of Argonne Drive. We’re asking everyone to shelter in place and avoid the area.”
“At the same time, we have now learned that multiple windows shattered and made our officers believe that we had an active shooter,” Worley said Tuesday night, “so we immediately put our emergency response for an active shooter in place.”
“The area was cordoned off. We set up a command post,” he stated, adding that BPD SWAT — along with federal, local and other jurisdictions — arrived to clear campus buildings.
Worley said there are no suspects at this time, and that the investigation is ongoing.
Fire department staged behind a campus dorm after multiple people are shot at Morgan State University on Oct. 3, 2023, in Baltimore.Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty
Later on Tuesday night,the BPD posted on Xthat the incident was “no longer considered an Active Shooter Situation, but everyone was “still asked to shelter in place.”
On Wednesday, MSUannounced on Xthat all classes were canceled for the day, adding that counseling services would be available to all students.
“The repetition of these horrific events is about 1 thing: easy access to guns,” Maryland state Senator Bill Fergusonwrote on X. “This doesn’t happen at our rate in places where guns aren’t immediately available.”
He concluded, “Should we focus on mental health issues and the like, of course. But we as a society have a choice: more guns or less.”
source: people.com
