Three dead, 5 hurt in US campus shooting

EAST LANSING, Michigan — A gunman opened fire on Monday night on the main campus of Michigan State University, killing three people and injuring five, before an hourslong manhunt for the suspect ended with his death, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said.

The 43-year-old gunman had no known affiliation to the university, and his motive remained a mystery, police said at an early morning news briefing more than five hours after the violence began on the sprawling East Lansing campus, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.

Details about the sequence events remained sketchy, but Chris Rozman, interim deputy chief of the university police, said shots were fired in two locations — an academic building called Berkey Hall and the Michigan State University Union building.

Rozman said investigators had no information about the motive, adding that the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before Monday's bloodshed.

Rozman said three victims were killed and five were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Lansing, the state capital, all of them listed in critical condition. Two of the dead were at Berkey Hall and the other at the MSU Union.

Officials declined to provide any details about the victims, some of whose identities and relationship to the university were still being determined, Rozman said.

The name and other information about the suspect were not immediately released, and police said they remained baffled by what precipitated the shooting.

"We have no idea why he came to campus to do this tonight," Rozman told reporters.

The gunman was confirmed dead, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot roughly four hours after the bloodshed had started, Rozman said.

"There is no longer a threat to campus. We believe there to be only one suspect in this incident," he said.

Michigan state has about 50,000 students. All campus activities were canceled for 48 hours, including sports and classes.

The shooting at Michigan State is the latest in what has become a deadly new year in the United States. Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far this year, most notably in California, where 11 people were killed as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans.

Last year there were more than 600 mass shootings in the US in which at least four people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Agencies Via Xinhua