Morgan student comforts classmates during lockdown after campus shooting injures 5
BALTIMORE -- Frightening moments unfolded on the Morgan State University campus, and five people are still recovering after being shot Tuesday night.
Four of the gunshot victims are students.
The gunfire shattered windows leading to a lockdown that lasted nearly three hours because police thought there was an active shooter.
"A large portion of the students ran into the room we were in," senior London Blackwood said.
He sang at a Homecoming coronation event in the Murphy Fine Arts Center before heading to a campus ministry event in another room of the building.
"I knew, in that moment, those in a panic needed some sort of anchor," Blackwood said. He prayed with the group as they sheltered in place for about three hours.
"It's not an easy reality to face just to think about the fact that someone's life is affected by the senseless decision of another individual and how unfair that is that you can you can come to an annual homecoming event and your life can be affected by someone's actions that you have no part in," Blackwood said.
Police conducted a room-by-room search of Thurgood Marshall Hall before the lockdown was lifted after midnight on Wednesday.
Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson said the school would be increasing security measures. Residence halls already use metal detectors.
Baltimore's police commissioner provided few details about suspects or motives.
"It looks like it was a dispute between two smaller groups, and then one individual was a target of two individuals who had weapons. We don't believe that individual was hit," Worley said at a Wednesday news conference at Baltimore City Hall. "We believe the five victims who were struck were unintended targets, and we do know a third person pulled a weapon but we don't know how many of those were fired."
Mayor Brandon Scott said his "heart aches for the entire Morgan community" and has called for stronger gun control in the wake of the violence.
"The horrific act of violence is a sickening reminder for all of us to how commonplace these events have become," Scott said.
Police have made no arrests and have not revealed how many suspects may be involved.
"There was more than one person with a weapon, the problem is the ballistics has to tell us how many guns there were that were shot," Worley said.
David Riedman tracks school shootings nationwide through a nonprofit database.
He said the large, militarized, "one-size-fits-all" response in this case may not have been warranted.
"It's a fight that escalates into a shooting, but when we only have one response plan and that plan is for an active shooter, we create enormous disruptions and huge amounts of trauma," Riedman said.
He noted that the presence of heavily armed officers was unhelpful.
"When they spent hours sheltered in their dorm rooms and have heavily armed [officers] go into each of those dorm rooms, that creates a more stressful situation—even though they were never in danger at that point," he said.
Senior London Blackwood said the Morgan community is strong. He is confident his campus will heal.
"It was something that burdened my heart all night. I just want people to know they're not alone. They have people thinking of them, praying for them," he told WJZ. "My hope for the Morgan community is that we find some type of way to pull together and to be there for one another, to help encourage one another…that we come up with solutions to ensure this is something we never have to deal with again."
Congressman Kweisi Mfume, a Morgan alum, told WJZ in a statement that due to "the cowardly acts of potentially multiple individuals with guns, the lives of innocent young people at Morgan State were gravely put at risk."
"It sickens all of us that no place is safe from this type of gun violence," Mfume said. "Mass shootings in Baltimore and this flagrant disregard for human life will never be allowed to become the norm. Be assured that the vicious criminal(s) responsible for this will be convicted, punished, and removed from our streets. We remain Morgan proud and Baltimore strong."
