A lone suspect opened fire, leaving 1 dead and 3 injured on Thursday afternoon at Seattle Pacific University.
Students bravely restrained the gunman who has been arrested by local police.
The suspect was reported to be carrying a shotgun and a knife before opening fire after walking into the foyer of the university.
‘This is not God’s plan. This is not God’s will,’ Seattle Pacific University professor says of shooting. Source: LA Times
The campus was in lock down for several hours, with over 4,000 students attending the university, panic struck everywhere.
A student monitor observed the suspect reloading the shotgun and bravely pepper sprayed the suspect, pinning him to the ground with the unity of other students in the facility.
Assistant police chief, Paul McDonagh, said the suspect in custody was a white man “approximately 26 years of age” who was not a student at the university and is identified as Aaron Ybarra.
Jillian Smith, 20, was taking a maths test during this incident and mentioned to Reuters that “seeing blood made it real … I didn’t think something like this would happen at our school.”
Source: BBC
A representative of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle said four patients from the shooting were brought to the hospital and that one, a man who was 19 years of age, had died.
People packed the Church on the campus hours later for a service of prayers and song.
Seattle officials voiced that the University and city is not defined by actions of the shooter but by the heroic response of the staff and students at the scene.
Many are still shocked by the recent event as the upscale Seattle suburb of Queen Anne is normally a quiet residential neighbourhood.
Authorities did not offer an explanation for any motive behind the gun violence.
This is the first Seattle school shooting since April 2007, and is 2 weeks after a shooting in California which had killed 6 people.
Other school shootings in the US in recent years include the 7 who were killed when a former student opened fire in California (2012), 32 dead from the shooting in Virginia Tech (2007) and 18 injured in Northern Illinois University (2008). Seattle mayor Ed Murray, sadly expressed, “Once again the epidemic of gun violence has come to Seattle.”
Seattle Pacific University shooting, it looks like. Dear God, when will this end?
– Chris Barnhart @ChrisBarnhart, 6th June 2014