Fatal Tennessee State University shooting started over dice game, police say | Tennessee
Fatal Tennessee State University shooting started over dice game, police say
This article is more than 8 years old- One person killed and two injured in shootings on on Nashville campus
- Incident is the second around the area in a little more than a week
A dispute over a dice game on Tennessee State University’s campus killed one person and left two hospitalized after an unknown gunman opened fire in an outdoor courtyard late Thursday night.
Police believe a fight precipitated the shooting. The unknown gunman allegedly killed a 19-year-old man who was not a student, and injured three female 18-year-old students.
Two of the students were taken to nearby Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where one was in stable condition on Friday morning, and a second was treated and released. The third woman suffered a “very minor graze wound” that did not require medical attention.
On Friday afternoon Nashville police were still looking for the gunman, and had identified the 19-year-old victim as Cameron Selmon, of Memphis. Police said they believed the suspected gunman fled the scene on foot.
The incident was the second around the Nashville campus in a little more than a week to rattle community members. One night prior, police held a community meeting to address safety around campus, after three Tennessee students were shot at an off-campus house party.
“We do not believe this was an incidence of a random shooter on campus,” Metro Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron told the Tennessean. “This was an isolated incident resulting from a dispute over a dice game. The Nashville police department believes this campus is safe.”
Metro Nashville investigators believe several students filmed the altercation with cellphones before the shooting, and are asking them to turn videos over to the police.
The shooting marks at least the third fatal campus shooting in October, including one of the deadliest in years in Roseburg, Oregon on 2 October. There, a gunman killed nine people when he opened fire at Umpqua Community College. It was believed to be the 294th mass shooting in 2015.
On other college campuses in October alone, one student was shot and killed at Northern Arizona University. The same day, 9 October, one student was killed and another injured in a shooting outside a Texas Southern University dormitory.
The shootings also highlight a conservative movement to arm students on campus. Texas approved such a law this summer, prompting a professor to quit. Some states, such as Oregon, require campuses to allow guns. Legislators in Tennessee have also pushed for such measures, but have not yet succeeded. The University of Tennessee has vocally opposed so-called “campus carry” laws for at least the last four years.
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