Manhunt Underway After 5 Shot At Morgan State University

BALTIMORE — A manhunt was underway Wednesday for the suspected gunman in a shooting that wounded five people and prompted an hourslong lockdown at Morgan State University in Baltimore Tuesday evening.

Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the five victims, four men and one woman, are between the ages of 18 and 22. Their injuries were not life-threatening, he told reporters at a news conference early Wednesday.

Morgan State Police Chief Lance Hatcher said four of the victims are students at the university. The police did not release information about a suspect or suspects, and Worley said that investigators didn't know how many shooters were involved.

The shooting happened shortly after the coronation of Mister & Miss Morgan State at the Murphy Fine Arts Center, as students were heading to a campus ball. A police news release said officers responded to a report of the shooting around 9:25 p.m.

Konnor Crowder, a sophomore from Baltimore, said he and his friends had been waiting for the coronation ball to start when they saw people running.

"First I was wondering what they were running for, then I was wondering where we should go," he said.

Worley said police heard gunshots and several dorm windows shattered, so officials initially thought there was an active shooter on campus and acted accordingly. He said they ended the shelter-in-place order around 12:30 a.m., after SWAT officers cleared a building where a suspect was feared to be hiding.

Footage shared by HuffPost Senior Editor Phillip Lewis on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows police enter a dorm while calling for students to put their hands up as part of the search from building to building.

Morgan State University President David Wilson said he had canceled Wednesday's classes, and would hold an emergency meeting Wednesday morning to decide whether to hold other events planned for the runup to the school's homecoming game, which is scheduled to be played on Saturday.

"It is unfortunate that this tragedy happened here tonight," he said. "By no means will it define who we are as a university."

The university, which has about 9,000 students, was founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute with an initial mission of training men for ministry, according to its website. It moved to its current site in northeast Baltimore in 1917, and was purchased by the state of Maryland in 1939 as it aimed to provide more opportunities for Black citizens.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott noted recent declines in the city's homicide rate and said the shooting Tuesday indicates a need for national gun reform.

"We have to deal with this issue nationally," he said. "We have to get serious about guns."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.