One person was killed and three others wounded in a
shooting at an Arizona university early on Friday before
police captured the gunman, university officials said.
The deadly shooting at Northern Arizona
University (NAU) comes just over a week after
the October 1 shooting rampage at Umpqua
Community College in Oregon, in which a 26-
year-old gunman shot dead nine people, then
committed suicide.
The first emergency calls came through to police
at 1:20 am Friday, when most NAU students
would have been in bed at the university
campus in the city of Flagstaff.
The motive for the shooting — just the latest at
colleges and universities in the United States —
was not immediately clear and the identity of
the shooter and the victims was not
immediately known.
“I can confirm that there was a shooting on our
campus this morning. There is one victim, three
are being treated at our local medical center and
the shooter is in custody,” NAU spokeswoman
Cindy Brown told CNN.
“The incident took place in a parking lot
adjacent to our Mountain View resident’s hall
on the northeast side of campus.”
The university will hold a press conference at
6:00 am (1300 GMT), said Brown, who described
NAU as a “gun-free zone” and said there was a
police department on the campus of 20,000
students.
NAU sent out alerts urging residents of
Mountain View Hall dormitory to stay indoors.
“Like many people, I was asleep,” said Brown.
“But of course this is a very upsetting thing for
anyone to receive in the middle of the night.
Honestly, our thoughts are with the families of
the victims right now.”
President Barack Obama was to meet with
families of the Umpqua victims in Roseburg,
Oregon on Friday.
In the wake of the Umpqua killings Obama
angrily called on Congress to do more and
warned that failure to act on gun control was a
“political decision”, vowing to keep pushing for
reform.
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