Baltimore HBCU Morgan State University canceled most homecoming activities this week and postponed what it did not cancel after a shooting in between two events left five victims injured.
The Baltimore Police Department announced Friday a reward of up to $9,000, proffered by Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, for information leading to the arrest and charging of the suspects.
Shots were fired, leaving five victims, four men and one woman, with non-life-threatening injuries. Four of the victims were students, the university said, and all five were between the ages of 18 and 22.
As of Friday, four of the victims had been released from the hospital, Morgan State said.
The incident took place on campus on Tuesday as students left the coronation of Mister and Miss Morgan State to head to a ball, near the school’s Thurgood Marshall Residence Hall and Murphy Fine Arts Center. MSUPD responded to the scene at 9:27 p.m.
A subsequent search of campus by police as students and staff sheltered in place did not turn up the suspects, and on Wednesday the school announced the first cancellation of homecoming activities in its history.
“Regarding Homecoming, regrettably for the very first time in Morgan’s history all activities planned around Homecoming will be either canceled or postponed until the perpetrator(s) of this atrocity have been found and brought to justice,” Morgan State President David Wilson said in a statement.
Canceled events include a concert, parade and pep rally, along with all other campus events, including a women’s volleyball match and this week’s classes. Another two events, the school’s homecoming football game and its 39th annual homecoming gala, will be postponed.
In addition to a picture of the suspects posted with the reward, BPD also posted a video of the accused shooters on YouTube.
The shooting was not the first time Morgan State has had to grapple with gun violence around homecoming festivities. A shooting in 2021 left one student injured, and another shooting in 2022 following an unsanctioned event during homecoming left a 20-year-old man, who was not a student, injured, according to WJZ-TV.
After the 2022 incident, security measures were increased, requiring events to end by 7 p.m. and the campus to be cleared by 9 p.m., along with adding more police and lighting and forbidding smoking, alcohol and firearms.
The repeated incidents have left some on-campus feeling too unsafe to participate.
“People were … on social media, calling it like just a Morgan State homecoming tradition, for there to be shootings,” Allie Ball, who lives in Thurgood Marshall Residence Hall, told WJZ-TV.
Mr. Wilson reiterated, however, that the shooting is not what Morgan State represents.
“It is unfortunate that this tragedy happened here tonight. By no means will it define who we are as a university,” Mr. Wilson said, according to the AP.
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