Police in the US say a man suspected of killing three people and injuring five more in a shooting at Michigan State University has died.
Key points:
- University police say shots were fired in two buildings at the campus
- Police say there is no longer an active threat and the gunman died from a self-inflicted wound
- All classes and campus activities have been cancelled for 48 hours
Few official details about the gun violence were immediately available, but interim deputy chief of the university police, Chris Rozman, said shots had been fired in two locations — at an academic building called Berkey Hall and the MSU Union building.
Police responding to the shooting, which began shortly after 8pm local time, found victims at both locations, Deputy Chief Rozman said.
Deputy Chief Rozman said investigators had no information about the motive.
He also said the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before Monday's bloodshed.
He said three victims were killed and five were taken to hospital, some of them with life-threatening injuries.
Two of the dead were at Berkey Hall and the other at the MSU Union.
Deputy Chief Rozman said the suspect "was contacted by law enforcement off campus" at some point, adding, "that scene is being investigated as a crime scene".
The gunman was confirmed dead, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot roughly four hours after the violence began, Deputy Chief Rozman said.
"There is no longer a threat to campus. We believe there to be only one suspect in this incident," he said.
Students and residents in the surrounding off-campus neighbourhoods of East Lansing, about 145 kilometres north-west of Detroit, were urged by authorities to "shelter in place," while the manhunt continued.
Nearly two hours after gunfire first erupted, several campus buildings had been cleared and secured by police officers sweeping the campus in search of possible additional victims and the shooter, university police said.
A short time later, MSU police released two still images of the suspect, taken by a surveillance camera, that showed him walking into a building, then mounting a short flight of stairs, wearing a jacket, jeans, a baseball cap and a black mask over his lower face.
MSU police said that all classes and school activities would be cancelled for 48 hours at the university's flagship East Lansing campus, a sprawling public academic centre with some 50,000 students, mostly undergraduates.
MSU's flagship East Lansing campus has 50,000 graduate and undergraduate students.
University police said on Monday night that all classes and campus activities would be cancelled for the next 48 hours.
Reuters/AP