One person is dead and three others are wounded after an early morning shooting at Northern Arizona University, according to officials.
This is the 46th shooting at a school so far in 2015.
NAU Police Chief Greg Fowler said Friday morning the suspected shooter — 18-year-old freshman Steven Jones — is in custody. The lockdown on campus was lifted at 3:16 a.m. Pacific time Friday when the situation was called “stabilized.”
#NAUAlert: Details confirmed 4 victims, 1 fatality, 3 wounded. Shooter is in custody. Situation is stabilized. Campus not on lockdown.
— NAU (@NAU) October 9, 2015
According to school public relations director Cindy Brown, the first police call about gunfire came in at 1:10 a.m. The shooting occurred in a parking lot outside Mountain View Hall dormitory, which is on the northeast side of the Flagstaff campus and houses the majority of the campus’ Greek life organizations.
According to Fowler, “two separate student groups got into a confrontation” shortly after 1 a.m. local time Friday. “The confrontation turned physical,” Fowler said, and Jones “produced a handgun and shot four other students.”
Jones, the suspected shooter, was taken into custody easily. “He stopped his action; everything calmed down as our officer arrived,” Fowler said.
NAU is a four-year public university with more than 25,000 undergraduates.
“We awake this morning to a terrible tragedy,” university president Rita Cheng said at a news conference. Cheng called the shooting “an isolated and unprecedented incident.”
Friday classes are set to continue as scheduled, Cheng said, but he added: “This is not going to be a normal day at NAU.”
According to Fowler, it is still unclear what caused the confrontation, nor if the victims and the gunman knew each other.
The dead student was identified as Colin Brough in a statement from NAU.
The three other victims were Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring. All three were treated at Flagstaff Medical Center.
The Delta Chi fraternity tweeted Friday morning, “It is with great sadness that we have learned of a shooting involving members of Delta Chi at NAU. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.”
“My thoughts and prayres are with families of the person who was killed and the three others who were wounded in the horrific shooting on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff early this morning. I appreciate the efforts of all state and local law enforcement officials, first-responders and school administrators, and continue to pray for the recovery of the injured, as well as those in the NAU community who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a stament.
