Two men are dead and another was wounded after a shooting in a dorm room at South Carolina State University just four months after another deadly shooting at the college campus.
Henry L. Crittington, 19, died at the scene of the Thursday night shooting at the Hugine Suites housing complex and Terrell Thomas, 18, died at the hospital, authorities said. The condition of the third man in the hospital was not known and his name was not released.
Both men killed were not students, while the wounded man was enrolled at the school, officials said.
An eight-hour lockdown on campus was lifted Friday morning. No arrests have been announced, but authorities said there was no longer a threat.
A police report indicated there were two women in the room, but investigators didn't release any details about what led to the shooting.
The South Carolina State University Board of Trustees held an emergency meeting Friday to discuss security but immediately recessed to meet without the public present.
The Thursday night shooting happened a little over four months after two shootings during homecoming celebrations on Oct. 4. One, which happened near the same residential complex, killed a 19-year-old woman. A man was injured in the other shooting. School officials announced new safety measures afterward.
Kaya Mack had just finished making a food delivery on campus when she heard gunshots and saw lots of police officers coming through a gate.
She said she wasn’t sure where the shots were coming from.
“Their loud sirens kind of shook me,” she told WLTX-TV. “We were looking around, me and other people on campus, we’re all looking around like, ‘What’s going on?’”
The university canceled Friday classes and was making counselors available to students.
Several people have been arrested on gun-related charges in connection with the October shootings.
After the October shootings, university President Alexander Conyers announced the addition of new fencing along the campus perimeter and additional security patrols to better control pedestrian access, according to a news release at the time. Crews were also set to repair damaged perimeter barriers.
Legislators need to look at laws that allow students and others to have guns on college campuses if they are locked and hidden in a vehicle, a lawmaker said. That leaves them with quick and easy access to grab a weapon if a situation escalates, Democratic state Rep. Hamilton Grant said in a statement.
“We grieved during Homecoming and this community grieves yet again,” said Grant, a 2011 graduate of the university.
The school founded in 1896 is South Carolina’s only public historically Black university, and has more than 2,900 current students, according to its website.
The university community recently marked the 58th anniversary of what has come to be called the Orangeburg Massacre. They remembered three young men killed Feb. 8, 1968, when officers opened fire on a crowd of Black students who had rallied on campus after demonstrating against segregation at a local bowling alley.