Advertisement

Police identify Michigan State shooter who killed 3 students

Police identified 43-year-old Anthony McRae as the gunman who killed three students at Michigan State University on Monday night. Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Corrections
1 of 2 | Police identified 43-year-old Anthony McRae as the gunman who killed three students at Michigan State University on Monday night. Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Corrections

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Police on Tuesday identified 43-year-old Anthony McRae as the person who killed three students and wounded five others in a shooting at Michigan State University on Monday night.

Michigan State University Police interim Deputy Chief Chris Rozman said during a news conference Tuesday morning that McRae had no affiliation with the university.

Advertisement

"He was not a student, faculty, staff, current or previous," he said.

Rozman added that McRae was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a tip.

Police received multiple 911 calls about a shooting near the university's social science building, Berkey Hall, on the East Lansing campus at 8:18 p.m. Monday and a second shooting at the nearby MSU Union.

Authorities have not discovered a motive for the shootings.

"We have absolutely no idea what the motive was at this point," Rozman said. "That's an unknown right now, and that's what we're trying to understand is why this incident occurred."

Advertisement

Authorities also said that they had found a note in McRae's pocket that made threats to two public schools in Ewing, N.J. The Ewing Police Department said that McRae had ties to the area, and out of an abundance of caution, Ewing Public Schools were closed for the day.

"Officers from Ewing and surrounding agencies were stationed at each closed public school as well as other schools in the township," police said. "After further investigation, it has been determined that the incident is isolated to Michigan and there is no threat to Ewing schools."

The three who were killed and the five who were injured were Michigan State students, Rozman said.

The three slain students were identified by campus police on Tuesday as Alexandria Verner of Clawson, Mich., and Arielle Anderson and Brian Fraser, both from Grosse Pointe.

Verner and Anderson were both juniors at the university. Fraser was a sophomore and MSU chapter president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta.

Denny Martin, chief medical officer at E.W. Sparrow Hospital, said the five injured students remained in critical condition. Four of them required emergency surgeries for their injuries, he added.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded for change at a news conference on Tuesday morning.

Advertisement

"This is a uniquely American problem," she said. "Too many of us scan rooms for exits when we enter them. We plan who that last text or call would go to. We should not, we cannot, accept living like this."

The mass shooting was the 67th to occur in the United States this year, according to The Gun Violence Archive, and coincided with the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead in 2018. Michigan also experienced a shooting at Oxford High School in 2021 that killed four.

"As a representative of Oxford, Mich., I cannot believe that I am here again doing this 15 months later," Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said Tuesday during the press conference. "And I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools."

Slotkin said the state now has students who have lived through their second school shooting in under a year and a half.

"If this is not awake up call, I do not know what is," she said.

President Joe Biden in a statement that "too many American communities have been devastated by gun violence" as he called on lawmakers to act.

Advertisement

"Congress must do something and enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing loopholes in our background check system, requiring safe storage of guns and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets," Biden said. "Action is what we owe to those grieving today in Michigan and across America."

Police added Tuesday that a search warrant was executed on a residence connected to the shooting.

Law enforcement responded to the call to the university with hundreds of officers. The suspect was captured by a surveillance camera at about 11 p.m., with a still released to the public less than 20 minutes later.

Authorities credit its quick release with attracting a caller's tip concerning the suspect's whereabouts that led officers to McRae at about 11:35 p.m. at an undisclosed off-campus location.

Rozman had previously said that McRae had been "confronted" by responding officers, and on Tuesday added that he could not comment "more on that actual interaction" as it is being investigated by Michigan State Police.

Campus police said MSU would remain closed through Tuesday. Classes will resume on Monday.

Interim East Lansing City Manager Randy Talifarro said city offices would be closed to the general public on Tuesday while essential city employees would continue to report to work.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines