Suspect apprehended in campus shooting
Published Oct. 30, 2007
Shots fired at the Northwest Missouri State University campus on Saturday, Oct. 27 at approximately midnight left no one injured.
According to a news release from the university, an alarm spread across campus quickly after the shots being fired.
The alarm stated that there was a shooter on campus, and encouraged faculty and staff to take shelter.
The university campus was locked down until 6 a.m. according to a news release.
Approximately 51 buildings are located on the 370-acre campus, including eight residence halls. There are 5,631 undergraduate students enrolled at the university out of the 6,334 total students.
In order to lift the warning, campus safety officers, as well as city law enforcement, performed room-by-room checks of the campus, including all residence halls and academic buildings, according to a news release from the university.
The release stated that two males were suspects in the shooting, which occurred on the university's Homecoming weekend.
A spokesman from the Maryville Public Safety Department said the investigation was under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Missouri State University Campus Safety Department and could not comment further.
Officers from the Campus Safety department could not be reached for comment.
In a second news release from Northwest Missouri State University released on Oct. 29, university officials confirmed that a person of interest had been arrested in conjunction with the shooting.
"That individual has been arrested on an active warrant from Lafayette County and questioned in reference to the incident at Northwest," Northwest Campus Safety Director Clarence Green said in the news release.
"The Nodaway County Prosecutor's Office has been consulted, and all subsequent reports will be forwarded to his office," he said.
According to the news release, police are no longer seeking another suspect in conjunction with the shots that were fired.
The release stated that, along with Campus Safety and Maryville Public Safety, the Nodaway County Sheriff's Office, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are involved in the investigation.
Northwest Missouri State University spokesman Anthony Brown declined to comment further on the issue.
Following the shooting, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt asked the co-chairpersons of the Campus Security Task Force to provide him with an "after-action" report, according to a news release from Blunt's office.
Blunt created the Campus Security Task Force in April following the shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The 29-member task force made recommendations to Blunt in August regarding safety and security in Missouri's higher education institutions.
The report is expected to be delivered by the co-chairpersons by the end of the week.
— Staff writer Kathleen Pointer contributed to this report
