Videos online show police entering dorms at Morgan State University after at least one gunman opened fire on the campus.
Five people aged between 18 and 22 were shot after the incident on Tuesday night on the Baltimore, Maryland, HBCU campus. Police said four victims attended the school, and all suffered non-life-threatening injuries. They were identified as four males and one female.
During a news conference early Wednesday morning, Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said campus police heard “discharge” at about 9.25 p.m. and found the victims “within seconds.” The university and law enforcement urged students to shelter in place or avoid the area. A freshman told Fox Baltimore that when he heard the “bangs,” he went into hiding: “I had a lot of adrenaline, but I had to stay calm,” Jordan Gibson said.
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The shooting took place during homecoming week for the historically Black university. That night was the homecoming court ritual, the coronation of Mister and Miss Morgan State.
“We learned that multiple windows shattered and made our officers believe possibly we had an active shooter, so we immediately put our emergency response for an active shooter in place,” Worley said. “The area was cordoned off; we set up a command post. We secured several areas. BPD SWAT as well as members from our federal, local and other jurisdictions came to assist us as we cleared the buildings to make sure we did not have an active shooter.”
Worley also said that the agency is waiting for ballistics results to determine if more than one gun was fired, The Baltimore Sun reports. The police think three people were armed during the incident.
The suspect remains at large, and authorities are still investigating. Details are preliminary. On social media, students shared videos of officers going door-to-door.
One video shows armed officers announcing themselves and telling a student to walk out of the room. Another video on TikTok shows multiple officers walking through the hallway, asking if anyone is shooting on the floor. A third shows authorities conducting a search by entering a room and instructing the people inside to turn around and pull the bedsheets up.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott condemned the violence, stating that more needs to be done to eradicate this national issue.
“It reminds all again that we are dealing with — not just here in Baltimore, not just at Morgan State University — but across this country of the United States an epidemic when it comes to guns and gun violence,” Scott said.
He continued, “And it’s time for us to get serious about that, not just at a local level where we recovered over 2100 guns, but at the national level. We have to stop saying, ‘Not One More.’ We need action now. There are things that could be done, particularly at the level of Congress, that can help stop the next shooting on a campus, at a church, at a supermarket from happening. When is enough going to be enough?”
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 531 mass shootings in 2023, including the incident at Morgan State this week.
Tuesday night’s shooting marked the third year in a row that gun violence has marred homecoming week festivities at Morgan State, the Sun also reported. In 2022, a man was shot at a homecoming after-party, while in 2021, a freshman shot another freshman during a fight as crowds were leaving the homecoming game.
In a statement Wednesday morning, Morgan State University President David Wilson said that classes are canceled, and counseling is available for students and staff.
“What happened on our campus was such a senseless act of violence perpetrated on our community,” Wilson added.
