2 dead in university shooting
The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 3 months AGO
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two people died Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide inside a building on the University of South Carolina’s campus, a shooting that authorities called “very isolated.”
The state’s flagship university said in two alerts via its emergency system and Twitter that a shooting had occurred at the new School of Public Health, in a busy section of downtown Columbia.
State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said in a brief news conference that the two people were found in a room the public health building but would not say which floor. Berry said there was “no active shooter situation” and he did not release any names or any other information.
“Every indication we have seen so far it appears to be a very isolated incident — a murder-suicide,” he said.
The university said little about the shooting other than its emergency alert. Classes went on as scheduled except in the building where the shooting took place.
Student Hayden Dunn, a senior from Myrtle Beach, said he was in the building about 1 p.m., getting in an elevator to change classes, when a police officer also got inside. Dunn said the officer asked whether anyone had heard gunshots, but they hadn’t. Dunn said he went to class, then an alarm sounded minutes later, and people rushed outside. Another officer told him shots had been fired, he said.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have known anything happened,” Dunn said.
Some roads were blocked in the immediate area after the shooting, but students still walked around campus.
The shooting happened a couple of blocks from the Statehouse and two blocks from the university’s basketball arena.
Workers and others fled the building after police told them to evacuate and they went inside other buildings wherever they could, said Barbara Reager, an administrative assistant who works nearby.
“They had no time to get their keys, to pick up their purses,” Reager said by phone.
The university texted alerts and also interrupted programming on its cable system to warn students and others to stay inside.
MORE IMPORTED STORIES
UI defends infrequent use of campus alert system
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 13 years, 3 months ago
1 dead, 2 held after shooting near West Virginia University
Columbia Basin Herald | Updated 5 years, 2 months ago
ARTICLES BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland
WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.
The Latest: US helped family escape Afghanistan overland
WASHINGTON — The United States is confirming for the first time that it has helped a U.S. citizen and family members to escape Afghanistan through an overland route to a neighboring country.
The Latest: Top Republican says Taliban holding Americans
WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says some Americans who have been trying to get out of Afghanistan since the U.S. military left are sitting in airplanes at an airport ready to leave but the Taliban are not letting them take off.