The latest deadly shooting on a college campus in the U.S. unfolded Thursday at Florida State University, where two people were killed and at least six others were wounded.
Frightened students, faculty and parents there for a tour took cover and waited in classrooms, offices and dorms across the university in Tallahassee after it issued an active shooter alert. Some crammed into a freight elevator after hearing gunshots outside the student union.
The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect’s mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon.
The gunman, believed to be a student at the university, was shot and wounded by officers and was taken into custody, according to authorities. The two people who died were not students.
Florida State’s main library was the site of another shooting in 2014, when a 31-year-old gunman wounded three people before he was shot and killed by police.
Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, although rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school.
“There’s this overarching fear that at any moment, something could happen and each time it does happen, it reinforces these fears,” says Michael Lawlor, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.
Here is a look at other deadly shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent decades:
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS: December 2023, 3 dead
A 67-year-old former business professor, whose applications to teach at UNLV had been rejected, opened fire in the building housing the university’s business school, killing three professors and badly wounding a fourth. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police outside the building.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: February 2023, 3 dead
A 43-year-old gunman fired inside an academic building and the student union, killing three students and injuring five others. He later killed himself miles away from the campus in East Lansing while being confronted by police.
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: November 2022, 3 dead
A student and former member of the school’s football team fatally shot three current players aboard a charter bus as they returned from a field trip, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured. Two other students were also wounded on the campus. The shooter has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges and is awaiting sentencing.
NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY: October 2015, 1 dead
Just weeks into his freshman year, a student walked onto the campus in Flagstaff and opened fire. One student was killed and three others were wounded in the first deadly shooting since the university was founded in 1899. The shooter later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.
UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE: October 2015, 9 dead
A 26-year-old man opened fire on his writing class, killing his instructor and eight other people at the school in rural Roseburg, Oregon. Nine more people were also wounded. The shooter then killed himself.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA: May 2014, 6 dead
A 22-year-old college student frustrated over sexual rejections fatally stabbed or shot six students near the school in Isla Vista, California, and injured several others before he killed himself.
SANTA MONICA COLLEGE: June 2013, 6 dead
A deadly act of domestic violence at home turned public when a 23-year-old man left after killing his father and older brother, carjacked a woman and shot at other vehicles. He then entered the campus where he had previously been enrolled as a student and opened fire, killing four more people before he was fatally shot by police in the school’s library.
OIKOS UNIVERSITY: April 2012, 7 dead
A former nursing student fatally shot seven people at the small private college in East Oakland, California. He was given seven consecutive life sentences and died in prison in 2019.
NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: February 2008, 5 dead
A 27-year-old former student shot and killed five people and wounded more than 20 others at the school in DeKalb, Illinois, before killing himself.
VIRGINIA TECH: April 2007, 32 dead
In the deadliest shooting at a U.S. college, a 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. More than two dozen others were wounded. The gunman then killed himself.
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: November 1991, 5 dead
A former graduate student upset that his doctoral dissertation wasn’t nominated for an academic award fatally shot himself after killing five people and injuring one other person in a shooting spree on the campus in Iowa City.
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: August 1966, 13 dead
A Marine-trained sniper opened fire from atop the 27-story clock tower in the heart of the university’s flagship Austin campus in one of the nation’s first mass shootings. He killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others before authorities shot and killed him.
