Police: student charged after Tenn campus shooting

According to the Associated Press, a 20-year-old student pulled out a revolver and shot another man in the thumb during an argument on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University, authorities said Monday. The campus of 24,660 about 30 miles southeast of Nashville was on alert for about 45 minutes. Police say Justin Macklin, a MTSU student from Memphis, got into an argument and shot at Austin Morrow of Murfreesboro, wounding the 20-year-old former student. Police said Macklin has been charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds, aggravated assault and reckless engdangerment. He was released on $18,500 bond from the Rutherford County jail, authorities said. A spokeswoman said there was no record of an attorney in the case, and added a court hearing is scheduled March 2. MTSU Police Chief Buddy Peaster said the two men had problems in the past but he did not say what prompted the shooting or elaborate on what they had argued about…

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Notification delay surfaces in Alabama shootings

The UAH shootings could bring more attention to text message alert systems, experts say.
The UAH shootings could bring more attention to text message alert systems, experts say.

Nearly an hour passed before University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) officials dispatched emergency notification to students and faculty after fatal shootings allegedly committed by a professor, raising new questions about campus-based alert systems.

University President David Williams sent an eMail to faculty and students Feb. 15—three days after the shootings that killed three people and injured three others—and said campus police responded to the gunfire within minutes, but the university community was not alerted via text message or eMail.

“… Some of you are understandably troubled about the speed with which a text message alert was sent following the shootings,” Williams said in his open letter to UAH students and faculty. “As any institution would do after an incident like this, our university will conduct a complete examination of the emergency response. How to more effectively use the university’s text message system in the midst of a fast-moving, life-threatening situation will certainly be part of that review.”…Read More