Michigan State University (MSU), home to around 49,659 students, made headlines on February 13 for a shooting that killed three and injured five.
At 8:18 pm, gunshots were reported at Berkey Hall, which hosts the College of Social Science and the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research. Promptly after police got to Berkey Hall, there were shots heard in the MSU Union. MSU announced a lockdown from the first shots, shelter in place order was sent to students, and the campus remained in lockdown until it was lifted at 12:30 am.
MSU sent emails to all students on February 13 at 10:04 pm informing them about the circumstances.
“This is an MSU ALERT from the Michigan State University Police Department regarding an incident on the East Lansing campus,” MSU police said. “A person is actively shooting at the East Lansing campus. This is an active and ongoing situation. Follow the Run, Hide and Fight guidelines.”
Run, Hide and Fight is a tactic made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in order to help people in shootings to stay tranquil, more informed and get out as safely as possible. Run: Evacuate If Possible, Hide: Hide silently in as safe a place as possible and Fight: Take action to disrupt or incapacitate the shooter.
The MSU’s Police and Public Safety Twitter kept the community and family members updated on new information throughout the night.
“UPDATE: The suspect description is a short male with a mask, possibly Black. Please continue to shelter in place. We are still receiving multiple calls of an active shooter on campus,” MSU’s Police and Public Safety said.
The campus remained closed for 48 hours On February 16, MSU leaders announced Berkey Hall is going to stay closed for the rest of the spring semester, which ends in May, and the Union is closed until further notice. All of the classes previously held at Berkey Hall are being moved to empty classrooms around campus or online
On February 14, police revealed the shooter was 43-year-old named Anthony Dwayne McRae. He was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot located away from the campus on East Street in Lansing around 1:30 am after the police were closing in on him. There is no clear connection between MSU and McRae, but it was released on February 16 that he had plans to target places in Colorado Springs, New Jersey, and the Lansing area.
“The note [that McRae had] listed a handful of targets. Not just MSU but businesses that McRae seems to have had contact with, including the Meijer Distribution Center in Delta Township where he had worked and other places where employees had asked him to leave,” Matthew Miller from the news website Michigan Live said.
This tragedy hit a lot closer to Northview than previous headline-making school shootings.
2022 Northview alumnus and MSU student Olivia Combs was in her dorm the night of the shooting.
“It was terrifying [that night], because we didn’t know what was going on within the span of four hours that the guy was on the loose. It was scary,” Combs said. “I never felt [that much] fear I felt [that night] in my life. That was the only time I can remember feeling that level of fear.”
Eight days after the shooting, Combs still felt shaken up but continued to take the healing one day at a time.
“As of right now, I feel okay,” Combs said. “I think I’ve processed, and mostly I do get the occasional low where I just get upset or angry that it happened and get emotional, but most of the time I’m okay and now I am just trying to move on with it.”
Principal Mark Thomas has a daughter at MSU who was two tenths of a mile away from the Student Union that night. Thomas and his wife coached their daughter throughout the night to make sure she felt safe and secure.
“I felt helpless as a father that I couldn’t be there and help her. Even though she’s 21, it was one of those [moments] that you’re kind of suspended in that limbo and there’s that fear that goes on but we talked to her every 10 minutes for 3 hours,” Thomas said. “I felt vulnerable, and I felt angry, and I wanted to be able to protect my baby girl.”
Thomas hoped to have raised his children with the knowledge to take care of themselves and be safe in these situations. Thomas, even though he was worried for his daughter, kept his faith that she knew to do the right thing.
“You realize that we raise our children to leave us, just like here [ at Northview] we’re working all of our students here hoping that eventually that knowing they’ll leave their homes and go off to their own lives but it’s still hard because you’re always still my child you’re still our student it never changes that care,” Thomas said. “Somebody said one time ‘you hope that you’ve instilled in them as a parent enough common sense and enough responsibilities that they know how to make good choices.’”
The shooting affected thousands of families and lives in many different ways, including sophomore Emma Denton, who worried for her sister and cousins on campus that night.
“[That night] was scary, [my sister] texted that she was okay, so that was relieving. I can’t imagine if she hadn’t responded how that would’ve been [and how] I would’ve felt,” Denton said.
Previously, Denton didn’t have much fear about these conditions but now feels like she has to be more aware of her surroundings, taking in that this issue is not distanced from her anymore.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m scared but almost should be because it’s not a matter of if now but when, because now that it happens close to home you kind of realize it’s not a rare occurrence anymore, and it’s happening more often,” Denton said.
MSU junior Arielle Anderson and sophomore Brian Fraser from Grosse Pointe and Clawson junior Alexandria Verner passed away that night, inside Berkey and Union halls. There are GoFundMes for two of the victims who are still recovering, John Hao and Nate Statly.
