Baltimore police were searching for suspects Wednesday morning after five bystanders were wounded following gunfire during homecoming week celebrations on the campus of Morgan State University.
The injured were believed to be “unintended targets” in what was “probably a dispute between two smaller groups,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at a news conference Wednesday.
Four of the victims were Morgan State University students and one has since been released from the hospital, Worley said. The four injured men and one woman ranged in age from 18 to 22, and were hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening, campus police have said.
Worley said Wednesday that police know there was “more than one person with a weapon” at the scene but investigators were still studying ballistic evidence to determine how many guns were fired.
“It looks like it was probably a dispute between two smaller groups and then one individual was a target of two individuals who had weapons,” the commissioner said. “We don’t believe that individual was hit. We believe the five victims who were struck were unintended targets.”
Worley said that a third person also pulled a weapon, but they don’t know how many of the guns were fired as an investigation into the ballistics continued.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said at the news conference Wednesday that “last night we had a very, very difficult and tragic and traumatic situation at Morgan State University.”
“Our heart aches for the entire Morgan community, especially those directly impacted and their families,” he said.
The mayor said the incident, one of many examples of gun violence across the country this year, once again highlighted the need for action on the “national level.”
Worley said at an earlier briefing that campus police heard gunfire around 9:25 p.m. and found the injured victims.
Multiple windows were shattered, which led officers to initially believe there may have been an active shooter, he said.
The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting Baltimore police.
Students had been leaving a coronation ceremony that was part of the school’s homecoming week when the gunfire happened, University President David Wilson said.
Wilson said in a statement Wednesday that on Tuesday night, shortly after attending the coronation, he was informed by campus police that shots had been fired in the vicinity of the campus’ Murphy Fine Arts Center and Thurgood Marshall Hall.
A shelter-in-place order was lifted early Wednesday after the campus was cleared and officials said it was no longer an “active shooting” situation.
Classes were canceled on Wednesday, Wilson said.
According to Morgan State’s website, it is among the nation’s most diverse historically Black colleges and universities and had around 9,100 students in last fall’s semester.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
