As investigators probe why a gunman targeted Michigan State University and how he got the firearm used in the mass shooting, the campus community is mourning the students killed and still reeling from the hours of terror that unfolded earlier this week.
Gathered around a landmark MSU rock bearing the words “Always a Spartan,” thousands of students, faculty, staff and community members came together with flowers to honor the three students killed in Monday night’s mass shooting: Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner and Brian Fraser.
The MSU students died in what became the 67th mass shooting in the US in 2023 – less than two months into the year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
We shouldn’t have to live like this,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told the crowd. “We shouldn’t have to subconsciously scan every room for an exit, go through the grim exercise of figuring out who our last call would be to.”
“Our campuses, churches, classrooms and communities should not be battlefields,” the governor told the grieving crowd that included students who had also lived through another mass shooting at a Michigan high school just 15 months ago.
At Wednesday’s vigil, MSU’s head men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo told the students to allow themselves to show their emotions as they process the tragedy.
“Whatever you’re feeling, it’s all valid,” said Izzo. “Emotions are different for each and every person.”
As the MSU Shadows song echoed through the campus Wednesday, students wrapped their arms around each other and swayed together.
The Monday evening attack at MSU left three students dead and five wounded across two different campus buildings and sent terrified students running, barricading in classrooms, or jumping out of windows as hundreds of officers converged on the university in search for the gunman, who later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
While parents plan their children’s funerals and others watch theirs fight for their lives at the hospital, investigators are searching for answers.
Keep reading here and see below the rising number of shootings across the years:
