Police in the United States have called Anthony McRae the gunman who shot three Michigan State University students.
The 43-year-old, who committed suicide hours after Monday’s shooting, was not a student at the university and had no known affiliation, police added.
Filming began just before 8.30pm local time e it left three students dead and five in critical condition after officials said shots were fired at two locations: an academic building and the student union.
Chris Rozman, deputy chief of police on campus, said officials “have absolutely no idea” what the reason was, adding that McRae was not a student or employee of Michigan State.
“This has really been a nightmare that we’re having tonight,” she said.
Mr Rozman added that police confronted McRae before he killed himself.
Anthony McRae. Photo: Michigan Department of Corrections via AP
The killed and injured victims were all students and five remained in critical condition, added Dr Denny Martin, interim president and medical director of EW Sparrow Hospital.
The shootings led to a lockdown of the campus and a manhunt that ended approximately three hours later.
Police officers surround a scene where the gunman was
First responders at the scene on Monday. Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP
Mr. Rozman added that the suspect “was contacted by off-campus law enforcement” at one point, adding that “that scene is being investigated as a crime scene.”
Footage shot from a window showed panic among students as they fled university buildings when the gunman was on the loose.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Michigan State graduate, said in a briefing that US President Joe Biden pledged his support during a phone call.
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Michigan shooting: People try to flee scene
The university has approximately 50,000 students, of which 19,000 live on campus.
The shooting is the latest in what has become a deadly New Year’s Eve in the United States.
Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, most notably in California, where 11 people were killed as they welcomed the Lunar New Year to a ballroom popular with Asian Americans.
In 2022, there were more than 600 mass shootings in the United States in which at least four people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
