MSU Shooting: 'No Conclusive Motive' For Deadly Attack: Police

EAST LANSING, MI — Police said there's "no conclusive motive" for a gunman who targeted Michigan State University in February.

Michigan State University Police revealed the "preliminary" determination Thursday morning, more than two months after 43-year-old Anthony McRae opened fire on the campus, killing three students and wounding five others.

"McRae did not have any personal or professional connection to the university and did not apply to the university for employment in recent history," a statement from police said. "Investigators have determined that the note found on McRae at the time of his death provides the most information about his state of mind at the time of the shooting."

Police found the two-page handwritten note, in which McRae described himself as a loner and outcast, in his wallet after he took his own life a few miles from the campus.

"Why? Why? Why? I've been hurt," the shooter, Anthony McRae, who also claimed to be the leader of about 20 people, wrote at the top of the note.

"Every Where I go people treat me different. I don't want to be an American african I m a person Why do people hate me? They never accepted me," the note read. "I'm tired of being rejected, outcast, loner, people hate me, They made me who I'm am today a killer."

All three students who were killed in the shooting grew up in metro Detroit. Brian Fraser was a Michigan State sophomore from Grosse Pointe, Arielle Anderson who graduated from Grosse Pointe North High School in 2021 and Alexandria Verner was a Michigan State junior from Clawson, police said.

All five students who were wounded in the shooting have been released from the hospital, police said. The university closed Berkey Hall through the end of 2023, while parts of the MSU Union reopened earlier this month.

Michigan lawmakers have recently pushed through a slew of gun reform laws, including two sets of bills that include universal background checks and safe storage laws, in response to the shooting. Lawmakers also passed another piece of legislation that would adopt red flag laws. That bill has made its way to Whitmer's desk, where she is expected to sign it into law.