One person is dead after a shooting at Tuskegee University

TUSKEGEE, Ala. — Homecoming Week at Tuskegee University in Alabama was marred early Sunday by a shooting that left one person dead, school officials said.

The victim of the shooting was not a university student, but some of those who were injured were.

“The parents of this individual have been notified. Several others including Tuskegee University students were injured and are receiving treatment at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika and Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery,” the statement said.

An autopsy on the person killed, who is a male, is planned at the state’s forensic center in Montgomery, Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley told The Associated Press on Sunday. He said he wasn’t certain of the number of people injured, but believed it was 10 or less.

The city’s police chief, Patrick Mardis, said the injured included a female student who was shot in the stomach and a male student who was shot in the arm.

“Some idiots started shooting,” Mardis told the news site Al.com. “You couldn’t get the emergency vehicles in there, there were so many people there.”

The shooting occurred on campus and happened as the historically Black university’s 100th Homecoming Week was winding down.

“The university is in the process of completing student accountability and notifying parents,” the statement said.

In his 37 years as coroner, Bentley said he can’t recall any shootings during the school’s past homecoming celebrations. The mood around the small town of around 9,000 people was somber Sunday morning.

Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama — the school’s opponent for Tuskegee’s homecoming football game on Saturday — released a statement on Sunday expressing sympathy.

“Today, our hearts are with the Tuskegee family as they face the tragic aftermath of the recent shooting on campus,” the college said. “We extend our deepest condolences to those impacted and pray for healing and justice. Miles College stands with you in this difficult time.”

A person who answered the phone at the office of Tuskegee’s police chief said no other information was available.

The Alabama State Bureau of Investigation is investigating.

Sunday’s shooting comes just over a year after four people were injured in a shooting at a Tuskegee University student housing complex. In that shooting, two visitors to the campus were shot and two students were hurt while trying to leave the scene of what campus officials described as an “unauthorized party” in September 2023, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

About 3,000 students are enrolled at the university about 40 miles east of Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery.

The university was the first historically Black college to be designated as a Registered National Landmark in 1966. It was also designated a National Historic Site in 1974, according to the school’s website.