Lone Star College Shooting: Two Caught, Three Injured at Texas College
Three people were injured by gunfire on Lone Star College's campus.
HOUSTON Jan. 22, 2013— -- A fight at a Houston college campus today resulted in a shooting that left three people injured and two others in custody, officials said.
Shots were fired on campus of the Lone Star College shortly before 1 p.m. CT, causing the campus to go into lock down and some students to be evacuated, according to police.
Three people were injured in the gunfire, which police say stemmed from a fight that broke out between two men on campus. Both men involved in the altercation and a bystander who was a maintenance man were injured by gunfire. All three were hospitalized.
A fourth individual, a woman in her mid-50s, suffered from a medical condition during the incident and was transported to the hospital, where she is stable, the college said.
"The was an altercation between two individuals, one individual did have a student identification, and during the altercation there was a man that was shot due to crossfire," Major Armando Tello of the Harris County Sheriff's Department said.
Two suspects are now in police custody and are being treated at a nearby hospital with injuries, according to officials. They have not yet released any details on the suspects' identities. The condition of the third individual is unknown.
Police said they received a call at 12:51 p.m. CT that there were shots fired on the campus. When police arrived at 12:53 p.m., there was no longer an "active shooter situation," they said.
Police immediately apprehended one person of interest and took another into custody within about 90 minutes.
The shooting took place in the center courtyard of the campus between two buildings, according to Richard Carpenter, chancellor of the Lone Star College system.
The campus reopened about an hour and a half after the gunshots.
When the shots were fired, the school told all students to seek "shelter in place" in messages and on their website. Officials evacuated some of the students from campus buildings.
The shooting comes only a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 students and six staff members were shot, sparking a wave of attempted copycat crimes in states like California and Indiana.
The Connecticut shooting inspired calls from government officials including President Obama for stricter gun control laws.
Officials from the college said they had three drills on campus in the psat seven days to prepare for emergencies like this one, noting that they had never had an incident like this in 40 years of operation.