
One person is dead and multiple others are hospitalized following a shooting at the Tallahassee campus of Florida State University. A suspect is in custody.
NBC News reported Thursday afternoon that at least one person was dead, while another six people were receiving treatment at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare.
The news network quoted an unnamed student as saying that the suspected shooter looked like a “normal college dude,” recounting that “I was walking and this guy pulls up in an orange Hummer” and then “he gets out with a rifle and shoots in my direction.”
University officials told students on Thursday afternoon that they should remain indoors save for returning to their residence halls, with counseling and other support being set up at the Donald L. Tucker Center.
Around noon Eastern time, FSU issued an alert to the campus community that an active shooter was located near the Student Union, noting that police were on their way to respond.
At 1 p.m., FSU ordered students to continue “to shelter in place,” noting that law enforcement “have responded to an active shooter call at the Student Union.”
“All classes and university events, including athletics events scheduled for Thursday, April 17, 2025, have been cancelled [sic]. Individuals not already on the main campus at this time should avoid coming to the Tallahassee main campus,” school officials added.
A little before 3:30 p.m., the university announced that police had “neutralized the threat,” adding that students should “avoid the Student Union, Bellamy, HCB Classroom Building, Rovetta A&B, Moore Auditorium, Shaw, Pepper, Hecht House and Carraway as they are still considered an active crime scene.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jaime, was murdered in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, took to X in response to the news.
“America is broken. My daughter Jaime was murdered in the Parkland school shooting. Many of her friends who were lucky enough to survive that shooting went on to attend FSU. Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today,” Guttenberg tweeted.
“As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe. Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”
The FSU shooting occurred the day after the 18-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre of April 16, 2007, in which 32 students and faculty were murdered by a mass shooter named Seung-Hui Cho, a student who later died by suicide.