Police arrested a 19 year old found hiding in a dormitory closet at Virginia State University on Saturday in connection with an overnight shooting that left five people wounded, including one with critical injuries.
Chesterfield County Police identified the suspect as Camron Harris of Henrico, Virginia, and said he is not a student at the university. Four of the five people injured were also not VSU students, police said, with the victims ranging in age from 17 to 23. One of the injured, a 20 year old student, was treated and released from the hospital. The names of those wounded have not been released.
The shooting occurred just after 1:30 a.m. Saturday near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers found five people with gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. The incident triggered a campus lockdown as students were preparing for the start of the new school year.
What We Know So Far
Police obtained eight felony warrants for Harris, including charges of malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive, and it was not immediately clear whether Harris had retained an attorney to speak on his behalf.
The university said in an earlier statement that authorities were searching for multiple suspects, though police provided no additional information Saturday evening about the status of that broader search beyond Harris’s arrest. University officials said earlier in the day that law enforcement did not believe there was an immediate threat to the campus community, and the lockdown was subsequently lifted.
Residence halls at the university had opened for students about a week before the shooting, with classes scheduled to resume Monday. Many students had just completed the university’s orientation program for incoming students, known as the New Trojans Experience.
A large law enforcement presence remained on campus Saturday morning. The university urged students to monitor their email for additional safety updates and information about support services. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office assisted Chesterfield County Police in the response, according to county officials.
What Authorities and the University Are Saying
Virginia State University said in a statement that it recognized the concern the shooting had caused among students, parents, alumni and the broader campus community, adding that student safety and wellbeing remained its highest priority.
Arthur Fridrich, the university’s former director of distance education, who lives near campus and visits regularly, described the shooting as heartbreaking for the community given its timing at the very start of the school year. “For those that were shot, my heart bleeds,” Fridrich said, adding that he hoped the victims would recover and not let the incident come to define their lives.
Why This Matters
Virginia State University is a historically Black university located in Ettrick, about 24 miles south of Richmond, and was the first fully state supported four year college for Black Americans. With about 5,700 students, most of them undergraduates, the university has worked in recent years to expand while also improving campus safety and preserving its historic character, according to Fridrich.
The timing of the shooting, occurring just as new and returning students settled into residence halls and completed orientation activities, adds to its impact on the campus community, striking at a moment typically associated with optimism and fresh starts for incoming students. Fridrich’s comments suggest the incident is likely to cast a lasting shadow over this particular class of students, regardless of how the criminal case unfolds.
The fact that four of the five people wounded were not enrolled at the university, and that the arrested suspect also had no student affiliation, raises questions about how the shooting unfolded and who its intended targets may have been, questions that remain unanswered pending further details from investigators.
What Happens Next
Harris faces prosecution on the eight felony warrants obtained by police, including malicious wounding and firearm charges. The status of the broader search for additional suspects referenced in the university’s earlier statement remains unclear, since police have not provided updates beyond confirming Harris’s arrest.
Classes are set to resume at the university Monday as scheduled, even as the investigation into the shooting continues. University officials are expected to continue communicating safety updates and support resources to students in the coming days as the community processes the incident heading into the new academic year.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press and CNN
