GhLinks Media
An 18-year-old has been identified as the young man killed in a hail of gunfire that left 16 other people injured following homecoming festivities at Tuskegee University.
Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley identified the slain teen as Latavion Johnson.
He lived in Troy and was not a Tuskegee student.
On Sunday, 25-year-old Jaquez Myrick, of Montgomery, was arrested for being in possession of a handgun with a machine gun conversion device.
Authorities said Myrick was found leaving the scene of the shooting and charged federally with possession of a machine gun.
No one has been charged in Johnson’s death or the other injuries.
The gunfire erupted just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday at West Commons on-campus apartments.
Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Lt. Jeremy Burkett said of the 16 injured, 12 of those were shot.
They were taken to hospitals in Montgomery and Lee counties.
The four other people suffered injuries during the the ensuing chaos, Burkett said.
Emergency responders, along with campus and local law enforcement, secured the scene. The State Bureau of Investigations is conducting an active investigation, and the scene remain cordoned off Sunday afternoon.
Tuskegee University has announced that all classes on Monday will be cancelled as law enforcement agents and officers continue to process the scene.
It was not immediately clear how many of the injured were students.
Grief counselors will be available in the chapel on Monday.
Tuskegee Police Chief Patrick Mardis, who is the former campus police chief, said earlier a female student was shot in the stomach. “I helped load her up,” he said.
A male student was shot in the arm, Mardis said.
“It’s horrible,” Mardis said.
Mardis said he lived in fear of a shooting on campus when he led the university police department.
“I was always on pins and needles when I was there,’’ he said. “You see it happen everywhere. It’s happened everywhere else but us.”
