HAMPTON ROADS — Students and alumni of Michigan State University are mourning after a deadly shooting on campus took the lives of three students Monday night.
Students were alerted to shelter-in-place and then told to run, fight, or hide as the situation remained active. Five students were critically injured and transported to a local hospital, and three were killed.
The gunman, 43-year-old Anthony McRae, was also found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to authorities.
Campus police say the gunman had no affiliation with the university, and they are still looking for a motive.
From all over Hampton Roads, and even into our newsroom, the Michigan State University community runs deep and is grieving after this deadly shooting. Just like all alumni and Michigan State community members, we've all been affected by this horrible incident.
News 3 spoke to members from Michigan State University's MSU Spartan Alumni Club in Hampton Roads. They said they were devastated to find out about the incident.
The shooting hit extra close to home for MSU alum and Hampton Roads resident Audra Evans. In addition to going to school there, she grew up just minutes from campus.
Evans immediately called her friends and family to make sure they were safe.
"Mass shootings are tragedies no matter where they are. But it certainly does hit close to home, no matter where we are,” said Evans who is the scholarship chair for the Hampton Roads MSU Spartan Alumni Club. “As an alumnus, we had a livelihood on the campus. And so it, it feels like it happened to us, even though we aren't necessarily there anymore. But we're there in spirit supporting our fellow students and faculty.”
Evans said #SpartansWill is trending and she knows that all of her fellow Michigan State University Spartans will be resilient in the face of this tragedy.
This is the second mass shooting at a university in the past 3 months.
In November, three football players at the University of Virginia were shot and killed on campus.
