Three people were killed and five wounded by a shooter on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing, Mich., on Monday night, resulting in a campus lockdown that was lifted after the suspect was confronted by law enforcement off- campus and shot himself.
Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety Interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman confirmed at a late-night press conference that a person whose description matched the image circulated from campus security cameras “died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound” after police spotted the man walking in a location not revealed by authorities.
“This truly has been a nightmare that we are living tonight,” Rozman said, adding that police are “relieved to no longer have an active threat while we realize there is so much healing that will need to take place.”
Rozman stressed that the mass shooting is “still a fluid situation” with “several different crimes scenes” to process with state and federal partners, working around the clock to try to piece together what happened.
“We are unsure of any affiliation that the suspect had to the university,” Rozman said, adding that police are working to determine his identity.
Officials are also working to identify the victims; Rozman said he was not sure if they were students.
The first report of shots was received at 8:18 p.m. Officers responded to Berkey Hall — a building on the northern boundary of campus that houses the College of Social Science, the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, and the Department of Sociology — within minutes, Rozman said. While officers were in Berkey Hall the shooter moved over to the MSU Union, and after firing shots there exited out of the north door of the union. Two of the fatalities occurred at Berkey Hall and one fatality happened at the MSU Union. Rozman said reports that there were additional shooting scenes were erroneous.
In addition to the three confirmed fatalities, five people were injured — some with life-threatening injuries — and transported to Sparrow Hospital.
“We have absolutely no information on what the motive is,” Rozman said.
He called the initial response to the shooting “overwhelming” with “hundreds” of officers from all of the campus police department’s law enforcement partners — state, local, and federal — rapidly coming together in a coordinated effort to resolve the incident and secure the university.
Rozman said the emergency operations center had been activated and credited pre-planning including county-wide active-shooter response training for the smooth response.
Rozman said the campus had not received any threats in the past several days. “We were not aware of a threat before this,” he said.
