A Florida university shooting near the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University campus in Tallahassee on Saturday night left 11 people with gunshot wounds and another person injured, authorities said.
The shooting took place near the campus on Perry Street, the university said, while police counted six adults and six juveniles among the injured. At least three of the victims sustained serious injuries, while nine others were reported to be in stable condition, Tallahassee police said in a statement.
The Florida university shooting happened at a homecoming gathering, and it has drawn attention because children were among the injured. Police said initial findings showed a physical altercation preceded the shooting, without elaborating on what caused it.
What happened in the Florida university shooting
The shooting happened just before 8pm on Saturday, October 24, near Perry Street, close to Bragg Memorial Stadium, where Florida A&M University had hosted its homecoming football game. Reports from the scene said a fight involving two or three individuals at a homecoming party escalated into gunfire. Police described the incident as isolated, involving a small number of people, rather than a wider attack on the campus.
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said it was especially heartbreaking to know that children were among those injured. The youngest of those shot was 11, the New York Post reported, although police did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on that detail. One of the victims was a university student, according to police accounts carried in local reporting.
The twelfth injured person was not shot. That person, a grandmother of one of the victims, was hurt while fleeing the scene, according to local reporting of the police briefing. About two dozen officers were already in the area when shots were fired, and some officers carried victims to transport because crowds blocked the way, police said.
No arrests had been made as of early Sunday, according to reporting of the police briefing, and no person of interest had been named at that stage. The department’s Violent Crimes Unit is investigating the circumstances and working to identify those responsible, and police urged witnesses to come forward.
The response from the universities after the Florida university shooting
Florida A&M University said in a statement that its campus remains safe, and asked members of its campus community to avoid the area so law enforcement could conduct its investigation. The university said its hearts were with the victims and everyone affected by the incident on Perry Street.
Florida State University, located about a mile from Florida A&M, also issued an emergency alert about the shooting. It said there was no indication that members of its campus community were involved.
The distinction matters for readers following the story from outside Tallahassee. The shooting happened near the Florida A&M campus, on a public street close to the stadium, after a homecoming game. It was not reported as a shooting inside a university building, and the university’s statement stressed that the campus itself remained safe while police worked the scene.
Why the Florida university shooting figures need careful reading
Early reports of a shooting often mix confirmed police figures with details from other sources, and this case is no exception. The police figures are clear: 11 people with gunshot wounds, one further person injured, six adults and six juveniles, at least three seriously hurt and the rest stable. The detail about the youngest victim being 11 comes from the New York Post, not from a police statement quoted in the Dawn report, so it should be read as reported rather than confirmed by police.
The same care applies to the condition of the victims. Dawn’s police statement puts at least three victims in serious condition and nine in stable condition, a total of 12 that includes the person hurt while fleeing. Other reporting described one victim in critical condition among the seriously hurt. Those accounts are consistent if one of the three seriously hurt victims is in critical condition, but the police statement itself does not use that breakdown.
