Josh Nieves, 20, a music student from Fort Myers and Tim Kehl, 19, a junior finance student from Tallahassee, kneel yesterday at the fountain in front of the library and pray at Florida State University, in Tallahassee. Three students were shot and wounded when a gunman opened fire inside the main Florida State University library early yesterday. Campus police shot the suspect dead, officials said.
AFP
Miami
A lone gunman opened fire at a major university in Florida early yesterday, wounding three students before he was shot and killed by police, officials said.
The latest episode of America’s epidemic of gun violence happened just after midnight (0500 GMT) at Florida State University in the capital city Tallahassee.
More than 300 students were in the university’s Strozier Library when several shots rang out.
Officers responding to reports of gunfire confronted the gunman outside the library and shot him after he refused an order to put down his pistol, Tallahassee city police spokesman David Northway said.
Some witnesses said that the gunman was shot 30 to 40 times.
Of the three students who were shot, two were in hospital, one in critical condition, healthcare officials said.
A third was treated at the scene.
Northway said an investigation into the motive of the shooting was underway. The gunman’s identity was not immediately disclosed.
The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper, which said scores of students gathered yesterday for an impromptu vigil in front of the library, reported that Florida Governor Rick Scott was expected to make a statement about the shooting later in the day.
Florida State University president John Thrasher, in a statement, said that investigators assured him that the shooting was “an isolated incident”.
“Security is not lacking on campus,” added Florida State University police chief David Perry. “This person for whatever reason produced a handgun and started shooting.”
But it was the 23rd shooting at a US college this year in which at least one person was wounded or killed, according to a running tally by the Everytown for Gun Safety lobby.
Classes were cancelled yesterday, but the university – with more than 40,000 students – remained otherwise open.
With midterms scheduled before next Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday, the Strozier Library was open round-the-clock to accommodate students trying to cram for the exams.
Students told US media that as many as four shots had been fired within the library.
One student, Blair Stokes, said she was on the first floor of the library when “this guy comes up and says someone has a gun”, she told CNN.
Stokes said police quickly swarmed the building, as the university quickly put out an alert about a “dangerous situation” on campus.
Another student, Sean Young, told local television channel WCTV that he was on the third floor when students started running frantically past him, and someone said a gunman was downstairs.
With a fellow member of his fraternity, Young crammed as many people as possible into a study break room, hoping they would all be safe inside.
“I just tried to remain calm, especially for those that were around me. I didn’t want to panic anybody else. For me personally, it’s still kind of registering,” he said.
Second-year undergraduate John Ehab, also on the third floor, told WTXL television that students took cover in book aisles, fearing the gunman might come upstairs.
“It was a consecutive bop, bop, bop, bop, bop,” freshman Nikolai Hernandez, who was in his dorm room across from the library, told WTXL. “It makes me definitely a little bit nervous. I was supposed to be in the library. I had a paper to do and I got a little bit lazy and decided not to do it.”
