“Go straight to JTS!” Gramblinite adviser Joice Dunn shouted to me as I was on my way to my 2:30 class in Washington Johnson Complex Tuesday afternoon. “The police are there and are strapping up! Someone supposedly pulled a gun! I’ll tell your instructor where you are!” I immediately grabbed a photographer, hopped in his car, and headed over. We pulled up to Jacob T. Stewart to find three police cars surrounding the building with frantic students in shock.
According to witnesses, someone pulled out a gun in the lab after an altercation. Manager in charge of the downstairs computer lab located in JTS, Jamarcus King, a senior of Shreveport, gave his story to reporters.
“A dark-skinned guy came in and confronted a light-skinned guy at the front computer. The guy at the computer ran out and came back with his hand in his pocket like he was going to pull out a gun.”
King went on to report that at that moment a female, which we later discovered goes by the name of ‘Jasmine’ (no last name available), jumped in front of the guy pointing the gun, protesting, “It’s not that serious! Go on! Go on with that!” At that time the guy who did the initial confrontation fled the scene; the gunman then fled in the opposite direction.
Students immediately fled the computer lab, leaving behind valuables such as cellular phones and USB drives that were later collected by lab workers.
While talking to King, a guy in a green shirt accompanied by who was believed to be Jasmine came into the computer lab in search of their phones. After being asked if everything was all right, the unnamed guy in the green shirt stormed out saying, “No things are not all right. That dude pulled out a gun on my brother!”
After questioning a few other bystanders, we discovered that this altercation is the spiral of an ongoing dispute that began after a guy who is believed to be from Chicago and who is believed to be one of the participants in this incident was jumped by a group of guys.
Authorities Tuesday had not discovered the names of the gunman and his target. But, according to a press release issued by the university Wednesday at 5:37 p.m., GSU student Christian V. Wallace, 21, was arrested and in custody at the Lincoln Parish Detention Center after police say he allegedly brandished a weapon following a brief scuffle on campus Tuesday. It did not say when or where the arrest took place.
Are we reliving TigerFest 2008, when festivities were called off for the week because of a series of shootings and fights, among other activities, followed by a confrontation between two groups of students.
Are the Emergency First Call Notifications notifying us of these urgent events in a timely manner? Just Friday, April 17, students received a call and text message via cell phone testing the systems.
Two and a half hours and counting after the event, no students had received notifications warning them to secure their safety.
At 5 p.m., there were students who still hadn’t heard about any disturbances on campus. Do you feel secure?