HAMPTON, Va. (AP) – A former student shot the night manager and a pizza delivery man inside a Hampton University dorm early Sunday before turning the gun on himself, police and school officials said Sunday. All three were hospitalized.
No students were injured in the shooting reported around 1 a.m., Hampton police said.
The suspect, who is from New York, shot two Hampton men, ages 62 and 43, before shooting himself, police said in a statement.
The 18-year-old shooter is a former student and the older victim is the night manager of the dormitory, Harkness Hall, school spokeswoman Yuri Rodgers Milligan said.
Names of those involved were not immediately released.
“The Hampton University community is praying for those injured in this tragic incident.” Hampton President William R. Harvey said in a statement.
Jelani Holland, 18, a freshman from Los Angeles, said he and other students were playing music and video games in the all-male freshman dormitory when they heard a fire alarm about 12:30 a.m. As they left their rooms, they saw the delivery man shot in the neck and stomach outside the night manager’s office. Police were applying pressure to his wounds, he said.
“He was shaking a lot and talking with police,” Holland said.
Officials did not have the motive for the shooting, which prompted a campus lockdown that was lifted later in the morning.
Per university policy, all students, faculty and staff were notified about the situation via text message and e-mail.
Harvey said when he arrived on campus about 15 minutes after the shooting, a lockdown was already in place and Harkness Hall had been evacuated.
David Wilkins, a freshman from Germantown, Md., said when he and his fellow dorm mates left Harkness they were instructed to go to other dorms.
“A lot of people didn’t know what was going on in Harkness,” he said of other students on campus. He said the first alert wasn’t issued until 2:30 a.m.
“People were trying to figure out what was going on,” Holland said.
Milligan could not immediately say when the first alert was issued.
Hampton University is a private school in southeastern Virginia with about 5,700 students. It was founded in 1868 during Reconstruction to educate black leaders for the newly freed slaves.
