Police: 2 dead in murder-suicide at University of SC

Law enforcement officials gather on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., …

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two people died Thursday in an apparent murder-suicide inside a building on the University of South Carolina's campus, a shooting that authorities called "very isolated."



The state's flagship university said in two alerts via its emergency system and Twitter that a shooting had occurred at the new School of Public Health, in a busy section of downtown Columbia.
State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said in a brief news conference that the two people were found in a room the public health building but would not say which floor. Berry said there was "no active shooter situation" and he did not release any names or any other information.
"Every indication we have seen so far it appears to be a very isolated incident — a murder-suicide," he said.

The university said little about the shooting other than its emergency alert. Classes went on as scheduled except in the building where the shooting took place.

Student Hayden Dunn, a senior from Myrtle Beach, said he was in the building about 1 p.m., getting in an elevator to change classes, when a police officer also got inside. Dunn said the officer asked whether anyone had heard gunshots, but they hadn't. Dunn said he went to class, then an alarm sounded minutes later, and people rushed outside. Another officer told him shots had been fired, he said.
"Otherwise, you wouldn't have known anything happened," Dunn said.
Some roads were blocked in the immediate area after the shooting, but students still walked around campus.
The shooting happened a couple of blocks from the Statehouse and two blocks from the university's basketball arena.

Workers and others fled the building after police told them to evacuate and they went inside other buildings wherever they could, said Barbara Reager, an administrative assistant who works nearby.

"They had no time to get their keys, to pick up their purses," Reager said by phone.
The university texted alerts and also interrupted programming on its cable system to warn students and others to stay inside.
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Associated Press Writer Susanne M. Schafer contributed to this report.

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