A shooting early Sunday marred homecoming weekend at Tuskegee University in Alabama, killing one person and injuring 16 others in a dozen cases by gunfire, authorities said. One arrest was announced hours later.
Jaquez Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, was arrested while fleeing the campus shooting scene and was found to carry a handgun fitted with a machine gun conversion device, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said.
The agency statement said Myrick faces a federal charge of possession of a machine gun. It did not state if he was a student at the historically black university, where the shooting erupted in the early hours Sunday as the school's 100th Homecoming Week was winding down. Authorities said an 18-year-old man who died was not a university student, but some of those injured were students.
It was not immediately clear if Myrick had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Twelve people were injured by gunfire, and four other people had injuries that were not from gunshots, the state agency said earlier. Their conditions were not immediately released.
The FBI became involved and issued a statement saying it was seeking tips from the public, as well as any video witnesses might have. It established an online site where people could upload video.
Tuskegee University said classes there will be canceled Monday. There will also be grief counselors available to assist students in the university's chapel.
The university said in a statement that several of the injured were being treated at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika and Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery, while the parents of the victim had been informed.
An autopsy on the 18-year-old was scheduled at the state's forensic center in Montgomery, Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Tuskegee city police chief Patrick Mardis said that the victims involved in this incident included a female student shot on her stomach and a male student on the arm.
Mardis says that the city police responded to an unrelated double shooting off campus when they got a call about the university shooting on West Commons on-campus apartments.
Some idiots started shooting," Mardis told the news site Al.com. "You couldn't get the emergency vehicles in there, there were so many people there."
A person who answered the phone at the office of Tuskegee's police chief said no other information was available.
The special agents are still collecting and analyzing information regarding the chronology of events that eventually culminated into the shooting, said a statement by the state law enforcement agency.
For his 37 years in service as coroner, Bentley said he could not recall any shooting during the school's previous homecoming celebrations. The atmosphere in the small town with around 9,000 residents was solemn, he said.
The shooting has left everyone in the university community shaken, said Amare' Hardee, a senior from Tallahassee, Florida, who is president of the student government association.
"This senseless act of violence has touched each of us, whether directly or indirectly," he said at the school's homecoming convocation Sunday morning.
Life is so fragile," said the Tuskegee National Alumni Association pastor who leads the group, who said it in telling those attending Sunday's convocation service.
It's in such moments that people must be reminded not to stand on their own understanding, since in such a moment like this, I do not have understanding, said the Rev. James Quincy III.
I can only rely on my faith, and my prayer for our entire family, this community, as we close out this marvelous family reunion that we shared this week, most importantly because of that faith walk and that trust in God, that we have resilience, resilience in the time of trouble.
Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, the school's opponent for Tuskegee's homecoming football game on Saturday, issued a statement expressing sympathy.
Today, our hearts are with the Tuskegee family as they navigate the tragic aftermath of the shooting on campus last week, the college said. We stand with them and extend condolences and thoughts of healing and justice to all those impacted. Miles College stands with you in this difficult time.
Sunday's shooting comes more than a year after four people were injured in a shooting at a Tuskegee University student housing complex. In that shooting, two visitors to the campus were shot and two students were hurt while trying to leave the scene of what campus officials described as an unauthorized party in September 2023, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
About 3,000 students are enrolled at the university some 40 miles east of Alabama's capital city of Montgomery.
The university was the first historically Black college to be designated as a Registered National Landmark in 1966. The site was also designated a National Historic Site in 1974, the school's website says.
Norma Clayton is chairwoman of the board of the trustees and was also speaking at Sunday morning service saying that we'd get through this because, in tough times, tough people band together and survive.
