A teenager was killed and 16 other people injured when gunfire broke out at Tuskegee University’s homecoming early Sunday — with videos capturing the sound of bullets flying on the Alabama campus.
The dead victim – an 18-year-old man – was not a student, but several of the wounded were.
At least 12 people were hurt by the gunfire, while four more were otherwise injured, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Sunday afternoon.
No arrests have been announced.
White Hall at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. Getty ImagesThe gunfire erupted just before 2 a.m. as the campus and streets were filled with students, faculty, alumni and parents while the festivities at the historically black university’s 100th homecoming wound down.
Shocking footage shared on social media captured volleys of shots ringing out in rapid succession across the dark campus, as people crouched for cover behind cars or lay flat on quad lawns.
The gunfire seemed to be coming from more than one weapon and sounded as if shooters were engaged in a firefight.
Police responded to a call of shots fired at 1200 West Montgomery Road, West Commons, one of the school’s apartment complexes.
Among those injured was a female student who was shot in the stomach and a male student who took a bullet to the arm, according to Tuskegee Police Chief Patrick Mardis.
“Some idiots started shooting,” Mardis told AL.com. “You couldn’t get the emergency vehicles in there, there were so many people there.”
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation is leading the probe into the shooting, while Monday classes have been canceled as police continue to check over the scene.
Tuskegee University is located about 39 miles east of Montgomery.
“It’s horrible,” said Mardis, the school’s former campus police chief. “I was always on pins and needles when I was there. You see it happen everywhere. It’s happened everywhere else but us.”
Roughly 47,300 people had filled Alumni Stadium, which has an official capacity of 10,000, for the university’s homecoming football game against Miles College hours before the deadly shooting.
Last year, four people were injured when a shooting broke out at an “unauthorized party,” at the West Commons, according to WSFA.
One student blamed the university officials for the safety issues that plagued the school and allowed visitors to freely enter without being checked,
“Them saying that the party was unauthorized to kind of switch the blame unto us, it’s crazy because even if it was an authorized party, with the security measures we have in place, the same thing could have happened,” Mechel Winters told the outlet.
“I just expected it to be a safe place because we are on campus, and there should be security measures in place,” she said.








