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🚨 Six people were injured in a shooting at Florida State University on Thursday, prompting a campuswide lockdown.
🗣️ Former Mid Bay News writer McKinsey Lamm described sheltering in the library basement and confusion over emergency protocols.
📱 Lamm urged the public not to share graphic images of victims on social media and to report such posts instead.
Six people were injured and two killed in a shooting at Florida State University Thursday.
Law Enforcement arrested a man in relation to the incident – and a campus wide lockdown was lifted as of 1:30 PM Central Time. FSU has cancelled classes for Friday, April 18.
At 12:01 Florida State’s emergency alert system put out a message to cell phones that read in part, “An active shooter has been reported in the area of the Student Union. Police are on scene or are on their way. Continue to seek shelter and await further instructions. Lock and stay away from all doors and windows and be prepared to take additional protective measures.”
Former Mid Bay News writer and FSUNews.com writer McKinsey Lamm had a class on campus a couple of minutes walk from the epicenter of the shooting and spoke with us about the incident. This is what she told us.
We edited our transcript with her for clarity:
MBN: What happened?
McKinsey Lamm: “I was in class, which is about 250 feet away from the library, and I got up because I needed some water. The closest water fountain was the library, so, I walked to the library. I filled up my water bottle and walked out of the library to go back to class, and a bunch of kids started running in. I thought it was like a game, because ‘senior assassins’ [a game where students ‘assassinate’ each other with water guns and/or nerf guns] going on right now. Then some girl looked at me and said, ‘You need to go back inside and hide right now. There’s an active shooter.’ So, we ran into the basement of the library, and some kid got all the kids that were studying in the basement’s attention and told them, ‘there’s an active shooter right now.’ So, we find an empty office room, and everyone piled in there. About 10 minutes later the alert alarm went off, and then an announcement went over the intercom saying that ‘there’s an active emergency on campus,‘ and to take shelter. Then we got a text alert from FSU police saying everyone is instructed to take shelter now. We stayed there for two and a half hours.”
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MBN: What’s going through your mind while this is happening?
ML: “I know that the emergency situations are really well practiced in the schools like in Niceville specifically. We would have drills all the time. I had never once been told what to do in the case of an emergency here, and that was something that really concerned me, because I had no clue what to do. I didn’t know if we would be alerted of it. I didn’t know where to go, what to do. It was kind of like a free for all, if that makes any sense, like, ‘figure it out yourself.’
MBN: Has this changed how you view Florida State at all?
ML: “I still love my school. Honestly, I don’t really know what to think of it right now. This probably sounds really bad, but I think campus is going to be a lot more cautious [about] potential things from now on, which I think is good. It does make me a little bit more wary walking around campus. I will say that it hasn’t changed my opinions on my school. This isn’t the first time that the first shooting we’ve had here, but like, for example, a person literally broke into a sorority house a couple weeks ago. Yeah, it’s kind of dangerous around here, and I’m starting to realize that.”
MBN: What do you want people to know about this incident?
ML: Definitely to be mindful if they see videos of victims online. That’s a big problem right now: people are posting photos and videos of injured and possibly deceased victims on Twitter, Yik, Yak, you name it. I don’t know if that’s something I should say, but I feel like it’s not okay to be posting that. Report the post if you see [one].
Lamm followed up on our conversation with this: “I would like to ask everyone to keep the Florida State community in their thoughts and prayers.”
