A search was underway on Wednesday for the gunman who shot five people amid homecoming celebrations at Baltimore’s Morgan State University.
via: NBC News
No one was in custody early Wednesday in the shooting, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said.
Campus police on patrol heard gunfire around 9:25 p.m. and found multiple victims shot, Worley said.
The five victims, four men and one woman who range in age from 18 to 22, were hospitalized with injuries that are not life-threatening, he said.
Four of the five are students at the university, campus Police Chief Lance Hatcher said.
Citing the ongoing investigation, officials did not provide information about the number of potential shooters or where the gunfire occurred, except to say it happened outdoors.
Baltimore City Council member Ryan Dorsey said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had been told by police that there were believed to have been at least three shooters firing into the crowd. Authorities have not confirmed that number.
“For those who decided to come onto this jewel of a campus, and inflict this pain and trauma on their community — we’re going to find you. We won’t stop,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said at an early morning news conference.
Multiple windows were shattered, which led officers to believe there may have been an active shooter and police responded accordingly, Worley said.
A shelter-in-place order was issued for the campus and people were urged to stay away from the area surrounding Thurgood Marshall Hall and the Murphy Fine Arts Center.
Just before midnight, officials said it was no longer an “active shooting” situation. The shelter-in-place order was lifted early Wednesday and the university said campus shuttle service would resume.
Worley said the decision was made to reopen the campus without anyone in custody after SWAT teams cleared a building police believed the shooter may have entered.
“They cleared every single floor twice and after that we realized the campus was most likely safe,” he said.
Students were leaving a coronation ceremony and were headed to a student center when the gunfire happened, University President David Wilson said.
The coronation ceremony is part of the school’s homecoming week.
Wilson attended the coronation ceremony, in which “Mr. and Ms. Morgan State University” are crowned, and he called it a “beautiful event.”
He said the shooting was a “very tragic incident” and one that would not define the university.
“Morgan State University will not be deterred. We will continue forward,” he said.
Classes are canceled Wednesday, Wilson said.
Morgan State says on its website that it is among the nation’s most diverse historically Black colleges and universities and the largest in Maryland. It had around 9,100 students in last fall’s semester, it said.
The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they were assisting Baltimore police.
