It’s only been eight days since the tragic mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon — Oct. 1, to be exact. Now the attention turns to Northern Arizona University. While the latest school shooting does not seem to be a premeditated attack, the shooting will no doubt keep the issue of gun control in the spotlight.
Northern Arizona University (NAU) police chief, George T. Fowler, gave this information on the ongoing investigation into the school shooting this morning at a press conference:
“So this morning at 0120 hours, several of our students, two separate student groups, got into a confrontation. The confrontation turned physical and, one of our students, Steven Jones, 18-years-old, produced a handgun and he shot four of our other students. One of our students is deceased, the other three are being treated at Flagstaff Medical Center. We can’t release a lot of additional details at this time, I can tell you that all the resources of the NAU PD, the Flagstaff police department, and local law enforcement agencies are assisting us with this investigation.”
As further information about the school shooter was asked, Chief Fowler said:
“Steven was taken into custody by NAU PD officers. He stopped his action with his handgun, and everything calmed down for a few minutes, as our officer arrived he was able to take him into custody without further trouble.”
While Chief Fowler could not get into any more specifics, CBS News reports that:
“Student Maria Gonzalez told the Associated Press that she at first suspected firecrackers. ‘I was studying for an exam so I looked out the window and see two people running, and that’s when I realized they weren’t firecrackers they were actually gunshots.’”
They also report that this school shooting comes on the day that President Obama is scheduled to visit Roseburg, Oregon.
While new details are sure to come out through the day, and following days, this new school shooting is going to keep the debate going. How many shootings will it take before we take this issue seriously? While some see this issue as freedom versus government overreach, others see it as their children’s lives over profit. Either way, these types of tragedies are not going to magically disappear.
Featured image by PBS News Hour video screen capture, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
