Six hospitalized after shooting at Florida State University: “Confine yourself and stay away from doors and windows”

“The Florida State University campus has been secured. Several police departments remain on site for the ongoing investigation,” police in this southeastern US city explained on social networks.
 

One man has been taken into custody, a police spokeswoman told a local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. However, she did not confirm whether the man was the shooter, and declined to comment on rumors on social networks that there were multiple shooters.
 

Florida State University, which has 40,000 students, had reported the presence of “a gunman” on campus around midday. The institution immediately advised all its students to take shelter where they could, while the area was secured. “We have six patients, one in critical condition and the others in serious condition,” linked to the shooting, a Tallahassee Memorial Hospital spokeswoman told AFP by telephone.
 

Several students testified to the panic that gripped the campus, when shots rang out near the student union office. “Everyone started running out” of the building, recounted Wayne, a young man interviewed by local channel WCTV. “About a minute later, we heard about eight to ten shots,” he added. The young man explained that he saw another student shot in the stomach.
 

It was all completely surreal. I couldn't believe what I was seeing,” he gasped. 

 

Another student, Sam Swartz, was in the basement of the association office when the shots rang out. “Everyone started panicking,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat, assuring us that he too heard about ten shots. Eight people, who were working on a project, gathered in a hallway and barricaded themselves with garbage cans and plywood panels, he recounted.

 

Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis offered his “prayers” for Florida State University, in a message on X. With more firearms in circulation than inhabitants, the United States has the highest death rate from firearms of any developed country. Shootings are a recurring scourge that successive governments have so far failed to curb, as many Americans remain very attached to their guns.
 

In the United States, the right to bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not counting suicides, were killed by firearms, according to the NGO Gun Violence Archive.