Teen Arrested in Closet After Virginia State Shooting
Teen Arrested in Closet After Virginia State Shooting
The News
Police arrested a 19-year-old found hiding in a dormitory closet at Virginia State University on Saturday over the overnight campus shooting that wounded five people, one critically.
Camron Harris of Henrico, Virginia, is not a student at the school, Chesterfield County Police said. Police obtained eight felony warrants for him, including malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
No motive has been released.
The Victims
The five wounded ranged in age from 17 to 23, police said. Four of them are not students. One, a 20-year-old student, has been released from the hospital. One victim remains in critical condition. Names have not been released.
Timeline
Gunfire near the university's Quad Annexes. Campus police and Chesterfield County officers find five people with gunshot wounds outside the dormitories. The campus goes into lockdown.
A large law enforcement presence covers the campus. The university says authorities are searching for multiple suspects. Officials say there is no immediate threat to the campus community and lift the lockdown.
Officers find Harris hiding in a dorm closet and arrest him. Police release no additional information that evening about the search for other suspects.
Reactions
"We recognize the concern this incident has caused among our students, parents, alumni, friends, and the broader VSU community," the university said in a statement. "The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority."
Arthur Fridrich, the university's former director of distance education, who lives near campus, told the Associated Press the timing is devastating. "To start a new year with this event is very tragic. It casts a shadow in the minds of all students, and for some it will be difficult to rid their minds of this term," he said. "For those that were shot, my heart bleeds. I hope that they all mend and somehow do not let this event define their lives."
What's Next
Classes resume Monday. Residence halls opened a week ago, and many students had just finished the university's "New Trojans Experience" for incoming students.
It was not immediately clear whether Harris has an attorney. The university told students to watch their email for additional safety measures and information about support services. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Hanover County Sheriff's Office are assisting Chesterfield County police.
More
Virginia State University is a historically black university in Ettrick, Virginia, about 24 miles south of Richmond. It has roughly 5,700 students, most of them undergraduates, and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for black Americans.
Reporting from CNN, The Independent, the New York Post and The Sun.
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