GSU update: Eight victims in 'mass shooting'

GRAMBLING – Investigators said Sunday afternoon they still did not have any suspects or motive in an early morning shooting spree on the Grambling State University campus that left one person dead and seven people injured, one critically.

The campus is under a curfew from 9:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice, the university announced on social media Sunday evening.

Louisiana State Police Troop F spokesman Master Trooper Michael Reichardt said his agency anticipates releasing the name of the deceased person Monday. Police did say the person was not a GSU student. They also said only one of the wounded is a student.

A large contingency of law enforcement officers from throughout North Louisiana had been on campus all week, GSU President Rick Gallot said during a Sunday afternoon press conference. Some officers were in uniform, some in plain clothes, and some were intelligence officers.

“We had a heavy police presence,” Gallot said.

After the incident began, the entire Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office patrol team and three detectives, as well as Sheriff Stephen Williams, went to the scene.

LPSO had just responded to a fatal shooting near Shaman Road, about 3 miles east of the campus.

But “when we heard ‘mass shooting (at GSU),’ we’re all hands on deck,” LPSO spokesman Sgt. Matt Henderson said.

He said the scene was the worst he had ever witnessed in Lincoln Parish.

The Sunday morning shootings occurred around 1:15 in the open quad area of the campus that extends across the street from the school’s T.H. Harris Auditorium. Both areas are about a block from where a school-sanctioned homecoming breakfast was about to take place in the university cafeteria.

An uncollaborated social media video shared by LPSO seems to show a large crowd gathered in the quad, with two groups of females beginning to fight. Then as many as 14 shots can be heard, some in rapid-fire succession.

First responders set up landing zones for medical evacuation helicopters at Ruston Junior High School and at Northern Louisiana Medical Center. At least two of the victims were airlifted to larger area hospitals.

At one point, all five of the Ruston Ambulance Service units were in Grambling, along with the RFD command vehicle and 16 city firefighters, who are also paramedics and EMTs.

The GSU campus has been the scene of several shootings over the past four years that involved non-students either as victims or as alleged perpetrators. 

Gallot on Sunday pledged to limit non-student accessibility to campus and limit extracurricular activities, but he stopped short of saying how that would work. 

“There will be limitations to the campus, I can promise you that,” he said.

Sunday’s shooting was the second deadly shooting on the Lincoln Parish campus in four days, both coming during last week’s Homecoming celebration. The remainder of Sunday’s homecoming events were canceled, as were Monday classes.

 “LSP is requesting assistance in locating a suspect or suspects in this shooting,” Reichardt said in a press release issued shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday. “Any information, even the smallest detail, could be of value in this investigation. This investigation is active and ongoing, and further information will be released when it’s available.”  

Anyone with information regarding this shooting is asked to contact Louisiana State Police Troop F at 318-345-0000 or their local law enforcement agency.