Delaware State Shooting Victims Identified
posted 5:05 pm Sat September 22, 2007 - Dover, Del.
ABC 7/ NewsChannel 8 has learned the identities of the two students from the District shot Friday at Delaware State University. Police have also identified three students as "persons of interest."
According to former classmates and neighbors, the two victims are identified as 17-year-old Shalita Middleton and 18-year-old Nathaniel Pew, both of the District.
The shooting, reported to police at 12:54 a.m., happened as a group of students were returning from an on-campus cafe. Pew was in stable condition after being shot in the ankle meanwhile Middleton, was shot in the abdomen and is in serious condition.
The two students were shot on the Campus Mall, between the Memorial Hall gymnasium and Richard S. Grossley Hall, an administrative building. Investigators believed the shootings may have been preceded by an argument at the cafe, and officials said it did not appear to be random.
"This is an internal problem," said Allen Sessoms, the university's president. "There are no externalities ... this is just kids who did very, very stupid things."
Delaware State University police say they're looking for a third person of interest in a double shooting on campus.
Police have not named any suspects. They interviewed two previous persons of interest. University police chief James Overton says those interviews were productive and led investigators to the third person as well as additional witnesses.
University spokesman Carlos Holmes says there are no suspects in custody.
Holmes also says reports that the male victim was not cooperating with police are incorrect. He says university police told him that the victim is answering their questions.
"This not an act of terrorism," said university police chief James Overton. "This was not a crazed gunman who found his way onto campus."
Students at Delaware State University are blaming a double shooting on tension between rival groups of friends from New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
James Dillon, who's from Cleveland, says people from New Jersey and D.C. have been "getting into it."
And Ali Muhammad, who's from Washington, says he's heard of at least three fights since school started involving the New Jersey and D.C. cliques. One student says the trouble may have started over a card game.
Campus officials acted much more swiftly than officials at Virginia Tech did five months ago, when administrators delayed notifying students nearly two hours after gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed his first two victims. By then, he had already started shooting 30 other people in a classroom building across campus.
A report by a panel appointed by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine concluded that lives could have been saved if alerts had been sent out earlier and classes canceled after Cho killed his first two victims.
At Delaware State, officials didn't wait. Within about 20 minutes of the shooting being reported to police, even as the victims were being taken to hospitals, campus police and residence hall advisers were telling students to stay in their dorm rooms, although not all were told there had been a shooting.
By 2:11 a.m., Overton was meeting with another university official to discuss the school's response. Notices were posted in dormitories and the school Web site by about 2:40 a.m., and the decision to cancel classes was made shortly after 5 a.m., well before the school day started.
The shootings happened under different circumstances. The Virginia Tech rampage began at 7 a.m. as students thronged the campus and headed to morning classes; at Delaware State, it happened in the middle of the night, when many students were in their dorm rooms.
The panel that investigated the response to the Virginia Tech shootings noted that it would have been tough to shut down the 2,600-acre Tech campus; Delaware State is only about 400 acres. But it appears Delaware State responded to the crisis well, said Gerald Massengill, who led the group."I think just like post-9/11, there's a post-April 16 mentality," he said.
Alex Bishoff, 20, a freshman from Washington, D.C., said he heard five gunshots and looked out his dormitory window to see people scattering. He said he immediately thought of the Virginia Tech shootings last April.
Students were warned within about 15 minutes, Bishoff said. "I think they handled it pretty well," he said.
Timmara Gooden, 20, of Philadelphia, said in a phone interview from her dorm room that she and her suite mates kept each other calm and were making sure that their parents understand that they're OK.
Students weren't even going into their dorm hallways. "We don't want to walk out there, because we don't know what's going on," Gooden said.
Students were still being advised Friday afternoon to remain in their dorms, but were being escorted to the cafeteria for meals. Officials also made arrangements for students who wanted to leave campus for the weekend, during which hordes of race fans and recreational vehicles converge on the town for NASCAR action across the street at Dover Downs Speedway.
Officials said access to the campus would remain limited Saturday, and that Saturday classes, a weekend farmers' market, and an alumni meeting had been canceled.
"It is a limited access day, that includes no media," Holmes said. "We just want to settle down Saturday, ease back into this thing."
Holmes added that school officials have concluded that "whoever this suspect is has gotten the heck out of Dodge."
"Does this mean media can come on campus Saturday? No," he said. "Give us a day to recover from this, OK?"
At the start of the semester, the campus held a memorial service for three students and an incoming student who were shot execution-style Aug. 4 as they hung out at an elementary school in their hometown of Newark, N.J. Natasha Aeriel, 19; her brother, Terrance Aeriel, 18, and Dashon Harvey, 20, were students. Iofemi Hightower, 20, had planned to attend Delaware State this fall. Natasha Aeriel, the only survivor, helped police identify six suspects who have been arrested.
Police stop people from entering the locked-down campus.
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