Two 19-year-old men were injured Saturday night in a shooting at Bowie State University as the Prince George’s County school was celebrating homecoming weekend, police said. The incident led to a three-hour campus lockdown, the cancellation of classes and an outpouring of concern from Maryland officials.
It was the second shooting within a week to occur during homecoming festivities at a historically Black university in Maryland, following an outbreak of gunfire Tuesday night at Morgan State University in Baltimore that wounded five people.
On Sunday, police said at a news conference they do not believe the two shootings were connected. The victims were not Bowie State students, police said, and a Morgan State spokesman said they were not affiliated with that university either.
Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland state police, said gunshot wounds the two young men sustained were not believed to be life-threatening. “We believe there are no further threats to the campus or the public at this point,” Butler said. “We also believe the shooting was an isolated incident.”
Advertisement
The Bowie State campus was locked down immediately after the shooting, with an order to shelter in place, from shortly before midnight until about 3 a.m. Sunday, when authorities gave an all-clear. University President Aminta H. Breaux said classes will be canceled Monday as the campus recovers from the shock. Breaux said Gov. Wes Moore (D) and other state and local officials had relayed their concerns.
“We’re going to take this one day at a time,” Breaux said. “We’re not used to this here at Bowie State University.”
For several days, Bowie State had marked its homecoming week with festivities leading up to a football game Saturday afternoon against Virginia State University, followed by a music festival, a jazz and comedy event and an after-party. “For a week our campus was filled with nothing but happiness and joy,” Breaux said.
Advertisement
It is common for homecoming events at HBCUs to draw attendance from people who are not directly connected to the host university. Saturday at Bowie State was no exception. Troopers from the State Police College Park Barrack were helping Bowie State with security.
At 11:30 p.m., troopers responded to reports of gunfire on campus, along with officers from Prince George’s County and Bowie State police. The victims, whom police did not identify, were found in front of the university’s Center for Business and Graduate Studies and taken to a hospital for treatment, police said. Maj. Kenny Brown of the state police said investigators recovered a weapon at the scene, but Brown did not describe it.
“We do not know what led up to the actual shooting,” he said. “Preliminarily we believe that there was more than one shooter.”
Brown urged the public to provide police with video footage or other information, and he gave a tip line: 301-860-4688. “We understand that some students also may have some social media video that is important,” he said.
The historically Black university, with about 6,300 students, is halfway between Washington and Annapolis and is roughly equidistant from Washington and Baltimore.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLGkecydZK%2BZX2d9c3%2BOamdoaGhkwKm7zq2gp59dmK6uvNSsZJunp56ybq%2FApqeuq12svLa6w56baA%3D%3D