Victims ID’d in Michigan State shooting
Gunman, who killed himself, was not associated with the university, police say.
With Monday night’s rampage at Michigan State University, the city of East Lansing has joined the list of American communities that have experienced the kind of trauma sickeningly familiar to a generation that’s come of age against a backdrop of school shootings.
The shooting at Michigan State occurred nearly five years to the day after a massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead — an event that galvanized a wave of activism, led by the survivors, to enact tighter gun laws across the country as they vowed “never again.”
Yet the national debate over gun violence continues in America, with many calling on Congress to act even as they mourn lives lost in the latest tragedy.
Brian Fraser, a sophomore from Grosse Pointe, Mich.; Alexandria Verner, a junior from Clawson, Mich.; and Arielle Anderson, a junior from Grosse Pointe, were killed, university police said in a statement.
Five other students remain hospitalized in critical condition.
The gunman in Monday’s attack had no known connection to the school and later killed himself.
Teresa K. Woodruff, interim president of Michigan State, said at a news conference Tuesday that the community is mourning and offered peace and condolences to the victims’ families.
“Our Spartan hearts are broken,” Woodruff said. “We struggled to comprehend we lost families, friends, classmates, and our hearts go out to the victims and families of the senseless tragedy.”
University police on Tuesday identified the gunman as Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43.
A caller’s tip led authorities to McRae’s location in Lansing, the capital, after police released a photograph on social media, said Christopher Rozman, deputy chief of the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety. The shooter was dead of “self-inflicted gunshot wounds,” Rozman said.
The gunman had no association with the university, as a student, faculty or staff member, he said.
“We have absolutely no idea what the motive was at this point,” Rozman said.
Michigan State, with 50,000 students, is operating under a modified schedule and has suspended all activities and classes, the school said on its website.
At 8:17 p.m. Monday, university police received a call about shots fired in Berkey Hall, an academic building on the northern end of campus. Rozman said officers were on the scene within minutes and found several people injured.
Two of the students who died were in Berkey Hall, Rozman said.
As officers were in Berkey, calls came in about shots fired at the student union. Officers went there and found one additional victim who is among the dead, Rozman said.
Authorities believe the gunman exited Berkey and walked to the student union, about one block west, before quickly fleeing.
“He was not in the building for that long,” Rozman said.
Rozman declined to answer questions about the length of time between the two attacks, citing the ongoing investigation.
The shooting set off a four-hour manhunt as hundreds of law enforcement officers combed the campus, and tens of thousands of students and community members sheltered in place.
Campus security cameras captured images of the suspected gunman around 11 p.m., Michigan State police said. At 11:18 p.m., the department released the photos on social media, showing a man in red shoes, a jean jacket and a navy baseball cap.
Rozman said an “alert citizen” called in the suspect’s location, which was dispatched to off-campus police units. The call came in about 11:35 p.m., just 17 minutes after the release of the photos, university police said.
“We cannot thank the public, the community and the person who called in that report enough for being observant, for following our messaging and for being vigilant and contacting us immediately,” Rozman said.
One gun was recovered, Rozman said.
Police searched a home that was connected to the gunman, he said, without confirming the location.
In 2019, McRae was arrested and pleaded guilty to possessing a loaded firearm in a vehicle, according to a court record from Ingham County, Mich. The gun was legally registered to him, but he did not have the required concealed carry permit, according to the Ingham County prosecutor.
A concealed weapons charge was dismissed as part of a plea agreement, and McRae was sentenced to 12 months’ probation, which he completed in May 2021, the record shows. Even if McRae had been convicted of the concealed weapons charge — a felony that carries a statutory maximum of five years — he would not have been recommended for a jail or prison sentence, the prosecutor’s office said.
In an interview with the Washington Post, the shooter’s father, Michael McRae, said his son lied about keeping a gun in their Lansing home after his 2019 arrest. McRae told the Post he once confronted his son about gunshots he heard in the backyard, but his son insisted it was fireworks, despite the bullet casings on the ground.
“I told him to get rid of the gun,” McRae, 66, told the Post. “He kept lying to me about it and told me he got rid of it.” His son never showed him the gun, which he purchased after his weapons charge, McRae said.
McRae said his son was having difficulty coping with his mother’s death in 2020 from a stroke. His son “was depressed and overly stressed out,” shutting himself in his room, he said. In his interview with the Post, he offered his condolences to the victims’ families.
McRae did not immediately return requests for comment Tuesday.
In Ewing, N.J., a school district closed Tuesday after police discovered that the gunman had ties to the community and had made threats against schools, the Ewing Police Department said in a statement.
When police in Michigan found the shooter, he had a note in his pocket “that indicated a threat to two Ewing public schools,” police said. The shooter, who had not lived in Ewing for several years, had a “history of mental health issues,” the department said.
Though an investigation revealed that there was no active threat, Ewing schools remained closed “out of an abundance of caution,” police said, with officers stationed at schools throughout the area.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent online database that tracks gun violence using police, government, media and other public data, there have been 67 mass shootings in the United States in 2023. The archive defines a mass shooting as one with a minimum of four victims shot, not including a shooter.
Among that list are last month’s California shootings in Monterey Park, with 11 fatalities, and Half Moon Bay, with seven — attacks that occurred less than 48 hours apart.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said she was haunted by an image from TV news of a young person at Michigan State wearing an “Oxford Strong” sweatshirt Monday night — a reference to a December 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four students dead.
“We have children in Michigan who are living through their second school shooting in under a year and a half,” said Slotkin, whose district includes both East Lansing and Oxford. “If this is not a wake-up call to do something, I don’t know what is.”
In a statement, President Biden said that he and First Lady Jill Biden offered prayers for the victims and once again urged Congress to enact commonsense gun legislation.
“Our hearts are with these young victims and their families, the broader East Lansing and Lansing communities and all Americans across the country grieving as the result of gun violence,” Biden said.