By JEFF MARTIN | Associated Press
A shooting early Sunday during homecoming weekend at Tuskegee University in Alabama left one person dead and injured 16 others, a dozen of them by gunfire, authorities said. One arrest was announced hours later.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Jaquez Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, was taken into custody while leaving the scene of the campus shooting and had been found with a handgun with a machine gun conversion device. The agency said in a statement that Myrick faces a federal charge of possession of a machine gun. It did not accuse him of using the gun in the shooting or provide additional details.
The agency did not say whether Myrick was a student at the historically Black university where the shooting erupted 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 that some of the injured were students.
It was not immediately known if Myrick had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
In a statement late Sunday, Alabama Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, called for enhance safety measures on college campuses.
“This is a call to action, and it will take all of us as a community, and as residences of the State of Alabama working together to stop gun violence, especially addresses the sale and use of rapid-fire guns and conversion devices that turning our communities into combat zones,” he said in a statement.
“I am committed to working with local authorities and community leaders to implement strategies that prevent future instances of gun violence and to ensure that our students feel safe while pursuing their education.”
The FBI joined the investigation and said it was seeking tips from the public, as well as any video witnesses might have. It set up a site online for people to upload video. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also was involved in the investigation, a local prosecutor said.
Tuskegee University canceled classes Monday and said grief counselors will be available in the university’s chapel to help students.
The parents of the victim were notified, and an autopsy was planned at the state’s forensic center in Montgomery, Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley told The Associated Press.
Tuskegee city’s police chief, Patrick Mardis, said the injured included a female student who was shot in the stomach and a male student who was shot in the arm.
City police were responding to an unrelated double shooting off campus when officers got the call about the university shooting at the West Commons on-campus apartments, Mardis said.
