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Latest on campus shooting
- Three students were killed and five were wounded in a shooting at Michigan State UniversityMonday night.
- The shooting unfolded across two scenes, an academic building and the student union.
- The suspect, identified as Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, a man not affiliated with MSU, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Police hunt for motive in shooting
Police were still hunting for a motive Wednesday as the Michigan State University community grapples with the aftermath of the deadly shooting that left three students dead and five others wounded.
Three students — Alexandria Verner of Clawson; Brian Fraser of Grosse Pointe; and Arielle Anderson, also of Grosse Pointe — lost their lives in the deadly shooting that unfolded Monday night across two locations on the MSU campus. Five other students were critically wounded and continue to receive care
As of early Wednesday morning, it still remained unclear why the suspect, identified by police as Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, a man with no apparent affiliation with MSU, carried out the attack on the school’s campus before taking his own life.
'We love you': Mourners remember slain student at vigil
Holding candles and standing in silence, mourners gathered to remember a student who was slain in the shooting at Michigan State University on Monday.
A crowd gathered at a football field in Clawson, near Detroit, to honor Alexandria Verner with 24 seconds of silence, to mark her basketball number, 24.
Verner graduated in 2020 from Clawson High School.
The 20-year-old was remembered as a positive role model, and someone with passion and compassion. She was one of three people killed in Monday night’s shooting, which also left five others wounded.
“Here’s to you, number 24,” Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger said. “We love you, Alexandria Verner.”
Kelly Horne, the high school’s basketball coach and athletics director, told NBC affiliate WDIV of Detroit that “Alex was epitome of a high school student-athlete.”
“She was the best we have,” Horne said, adding “a piece of our community is gone with Al.”
MSU student shoved a dresser in front of her door as gunfire rang out
Nadine Beydoun, a junior at MSU, said Tuesday that after she was told to shelter in place, she decided to put a dresser in front of her door and turn off all the lights.
“I would never have expected it to happen to me," she said. "It’s one of those things that you just never expect to happen to you. I still can’t believe it happened. I still can’t believe I heard gunshots next door from my dorm.”
Beydoun told "Top Story with Tom Llamas" that after Monday night's shooting that killed three students and seriously injured five others, she's nervous to eventually return back to campus.
“I do feel like it’s going to be hard to recognize campus the same anymore. It’s going to be hard to get used to it again. It’s going to be hard to look at my dorm the same, to look at the buildings that I travel to every single day," Beydoun told Llamas.
She said what happened on campus Monday night should not be forgotten.
"As a country, we need to stop," she said. "We need to stop moving on so quickly from these events because they need to be stopped.”
Photos: The grief-stricken Michigan State University community mourns
As community mourns the slain, a call to address gun violence and mental health
EAST LANSING, Mich. — State Rep. Emily Dievendorf called for an end to gun violence Tuesday as students and residents remembered the three students killed on campus.
At a gathering honoring the slain students, Dievendorf, a Democrat, said lawmakers and the public need to take a “holistic” approach to gun violence and mental health.
“This certainly affects the whole community,” she said. “We know the students are hurting.”
“We should always be alarmed when violence happens,” Dievendorf said.
Students not sure they'll ever be able to return to shooting sites
EAST LANSING, Mich. — The day after a gunman terrorized MSU’s campus, some students expressed hesitation about returning to the campus locations where students died.
Allison Blackmore, 21, a senior studying kinesiology, said she'll never set foot inside Berkey Hall or the MSU Union.
“It’s supposed to be a safe place on campus, and it wasn’t for them,” Blackmore said Tuesday about the three students who were killed and the five who were wounded.
“I won’t have to, so I won’t force myself to go there,” she said at The Rock, a well-known MSU landmark painted black with red lettering that said: “How Many More?”
Jenna Frommer, 20, a junior studying biology, said she’s anxious to return to class.
“When I’m going down the hall to take my exam next week, I’m not thinking, ‘I’m going to do well.’ I’m thinking, ‘I don’t want to die here,’” she said.
Mary Thomas, 22, a senior studying elementary education, said that she has family members who attended MSU and that the campus has always felt like a secure community. But that reality was shattered Monday night.
“It’s home away from home for so many people,” Thomas said. “Now I don’t know what it is. It’s not going to be the same — at least for a while.”
'Lightning doesn't strike twice, right?' says dad of MSU student, an Oxford High alum
School shootings are so common that some students are now experiencing the trauma multiple times.
Matthew Riddle said his daughter, MSU student and Oxford High School alum Emma Grace Riddle, is unfortunately well prepared for a school's reopening after gunfire.
“It sucks to even say this, but she knows what’s coming over the next few days and how to deal with her trauma and what’s going to happen with vigils and the folks who are experiencing it for the first time,” Riddle said.
The concerned father recalled his words of comfort to Emma after the Oxford High shooting outside Detroit in 2012: "'Lightning doesn’t strike twice, right? This has happened to you, and it can’t happen again, right? To Oxford, to you or anybody else,’ and frankly that’s not true."