GRAMBLING, La. (AP) — A sheriff’s spokesman said a student and his friend were fatally shot at a Louisiana university after an altercation that began in a dorm room, and the shooter fled the scene early Wednesday.
Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s spokesman Stephen Williams said detectives joined campus police investigating the double homicide at Grambling State University after getting 911 calls starting at 12:04 a.m.
The historically black university in northern Louisiana has an enrollment of nearly 5,000 students.
“It was an altercation that started inside one of the dorm rooms and spilled out into the courtyard,” Williams said. “We’re interviewing witnesses.”
Grambling State media relations director Will Sutton told news outlets that one of the victims was a Grambling senior, Earl Andrews, and the other was Monquiarius Caldwell. Both were 23 and from Farmerville, Louisiana.
Andrews’ aunt, Mattie Boyette, told KSLA.com that she had no idea why anyone would want to shoot him.
“He was here at Grambling, good student, good kid. He just wanted an education. He just wanted to better himself,” Boyette said.
“His momma his sister and his brother, he was the apple of their eye,” she said.
Wednesday’s shootings happened during the school’s homecoming week. KSLA.com reports that Sutton said it was too early to say whether any homecoming events would be affected.
A Grambling State student was wounded last month in a separate shooting on the campus. Sutton told news outlets then that a student let another person into a dorm and there was an altercation that ended with a student being shot in the left arm on Sept. 21.
No suspects have been named in either shooting.