Michigan State University marks one year since deadly campus shooting

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Tuesday marks one year since a gunman opened fire at Michigan State University, killing three students and injuring five others.

Somber students piled flowers and notes in front of the campus Spartan statue, the landmark Rock, Berkey Hall and the Union to honor the dead.

“It is very quiet today. Not a lot of movement, not a lot of talking. But I understand that and I hope that they people are grieving in the way they need to,” student Janay Duncan said.

Still processing the trauma, students said their emotions about the shooting change moment to moment. They told News 8 that their motto was, ‘It’s OK not to be OK.’

“Emotional. Sad. It’s tough. It’s hard to really describe into words. It’s almost like a gut punch, in a sense,” student Evan Katz said.

“I just feel sad for the losses, of course, and I just hope that nothing like that happens again,” student Zion Williams said.

“It’s sad, obviously, the day of remembrance. It’s hard. It’s not that you forget about it but, you know, life moves on,” student Sam Tuori said.

Many students said their parents called them Tuesday to check in and some even came to campus to support them.

Inside woodtv.com: Michigan State University shooting

Michigan State did not hold classes to allow the campus community to mourn. A remembrance gathering including moments of silence and the ringing of the Beaumont Tower Bells is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at Lot 62, north of Spartan Stadium. It will stream live on woodtv.com.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered flags around the state to be lowered to half-staff Tuesday to in remembrance of the shooting.

THE SHOOTING

The first reports of shots fired on Feb. 13, 2023, came in at 8:18 p.m. from Berkey Hall. The gunman had sprayed gunfire into a classroom, killing 19-year-old Arielle Anderson of Grosse Pointe and 20-year-old Alexandria Verner of Clawson.

“He shot and shot and shot and shot, and I just felt as though this was not real,” the professor, Marco Diaz-Muñoz, recently recalled to News 8.

Diaz-Munoz previously told NBC News that after the shooter left, he used his own body to hold the door closed, fearing the man would return. He told his students to kick out the windows and run. Several did. Others stayed, starting first aid for injured classmates until emergency responders arrived.

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The gunman, meanwhile, was walking a few buildings away to the MSU Union. There, he shot and killed Brian Fraser, 20, of Grosse Pointe.

Student Jack Gibson, who was working at the Union with Fraser, said last year that he initially thought the gunfire was a balloon popping. Then he saw a man with a gun. He and his fellow students ran.

The shooting at the Union was first reported to dispatchers at 8:26 p.m. Police rushed there, but again, the gunman was already gone.

What followed were hours of fear amid a massive manhunt that drew law enforcement from as far away as Grand Rapids and Detroit. Police kept getting calls of more shots fired and sightings of the suspect — the kind of false alarms common in a mass shooting, but they had to chase every one down. Students locked themselves in dorm rooms, crawl spaces and side rooms around campus, waiting for the all-clear.

Finally, around midnight, a woman on the north side of Lansing spotted the shooter outside her home. She called 911. When officers approached the man, he shot and killed himself.

Anderson was recalled by her family as “sweet and loving” with an “infectious smile.” At his funeral, Fraser was described by his priest as “charismatic” and “smiling.” A scholarship was later created in his name. Verner was described as loving, someone who “saw something greater in mankind.”

In addition to the three dead, five students were injured. Some spent weeks in the hospital and rehabilitation facilities. One of them, Troy Forbush, was the first to be discharged after recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Another, John Hao, was paralyzed.

VIGILS AND PROTESTS

In the days following the shooting, students and staff vacillated between shock, grieving and anger.

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They left flowers outside Berkey Hall and the Union and around the base of the campus Spartan statue. They held vigils at local churches and on campus. They sang and prayed together.

“I don’t understand why someone would come on to a college campus and kill a bunch of teenagers,” student Cathryn Johnson told News 8 last year after leaving flowers at one of the makeshift memorials. “I don’t know who is so evil to do that.”

Many students had grown up with active shooter drills, told to “run, hide, fight,” in the event of a shooting. Some who had been at Oxford High School when three students died in a shooting there in 2021 were at Michigan State by the time of the 2023 shooting.

“All I could think of was, ‘Not again,’” MSU student Sophia Miller, an Oxford graduate, told News 8 last year.

“The worst feeling, the same way I felt with Oxford, is helplessness,” she continued. “There’s nothing we can do about what happened. It already happened. Students lost their lives. Students just like us.”

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Students mobilized, telling lawmakers they were fed up. They held demonstrations at the state Capitol, which is only about 3 miles from campus, with speakers telling lawmakers they wanted stronger gun laws.

“We have lost too much. It’s only getting worse. It won’t get better unless we start changing. That starts with you,” MSU student organizer Maya Manuel said at one of the rallies.

“Words cannot describe how tired I am,” Ashlynne Sutton, an Oxford survivor, said. “I’m tired of watching the news and seeing yet another tragedy happen. I’m tired of texting my friends and asking if they are safe.”

The state Legislature, led by Democrats, responded by passing stricter background check and safe storage gun laws, as well as ‘red flag’ laws that allow a judge to temporarily prohibit someone from having guns if they are found to be a threat to themselves or others. Those laws went into effect Tuesday.

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Students returned to class a week after the shooting, but it wasn’t until January of this year that classes resumed at Berkey Hall — though the rooms where the violence occurred remained sealed off.

A permanent memorial is still being planned, with artist proposals expected to be requested this spring. A memorial bench donated by the Associated Students of MSU will be placed in April, along with new landscaping outside of Berkey Hall.

—News 8’s Meghan Bunchman contributed to this report.

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