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Major Takeaways
One man was injured in a shooting near Gateway Hall and Moore Hall on Monday night.
Virginia State University ordered a full campus lockdown and told students to shelter in place.
Officials have not released the name or the condition of the man who was shot, and no arrest has been announced.
A shooting on the campus of Virginia State University sent the school into lockdown late Monday night.
The university issued an emergency alert after shots were reported on the east side of campus near Gateway Hall and Moore Hall.
One man was injured in the shooting. His name and his condition have not been released.
The Alert That Stopped Campus Life
The alert went out at about 10 p.m. as the first reports of shots came in.
The message to students was direct: “A shooting has occurred on campus near the Gateway/Moore Hall area. One male has been injured. Campus is on lockdown.”
Students were told to go to the nearest safe room immediately, lock doors, and shelter in place until an official all clear is issued.
VSU Police also told students to avoid the area while officers respond.
A university spokesperson confirmed the lockdown was in place. The spokesperson said the university did not expect to make an immediate statement while the investigation is in its early stages.
The Dorms at the Center of the Alert
Gateway Hall and Moore Hall are residence halls for students in their third and fourth years at the university.
Together the two halls are home to almost 1,100 students. They sit on the edge of campus at the Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights line.
Moore Hall opened in 2008. Gateway Hall opened four years later, in 2012.
That means hundreds of young people spent Monday night behind locked doors, waiting on word that it was safe to move again.
What Officials Have Not Said Yet
This is a developing story, and the unanswered questions are the ones families care about most.
Officials have not said whether the man who was shot is a Virginia State student.
They have not described the seriousness of his injuries.
Officials have not said what led to the shooting.
No suspect has been named, and no arrest has been announced.
As of the latest update, the lockdown had not been lifted and no all clear had been issued.
The library at Virginia State University. Photo by Kevin Coles via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
The Second Shooting on This Campus Since August
Monday night marks the second shooting at the Ettrick campus since August 15.
In that August shooting, shots were fired near dormitories at the opposite end of campus as students were moving in for the fall semester.
Five people were injured in August, including a Virginia State student. Five suspects were arrested in that case.
Two shootings in one semester is a heavy burden for any campus family to carry.
A Campus the Black Community Holds Dear
Virginia State was founded in 1882 and grew into the first fully state supported four year institution of higher learning for Black Americans.
About 5,700 students attend the university in Ettrick, roughly 25 miles south of Richmond.
For generations of Black families, sending a child to Virginia State has meant sending them somewhere they belong. A night like this shakes that sense of safety to its core.
Parents and alumni across the country spent the night refreshing their phones, the way HBCU families have learned to do whenever an alert like this goes out.
The shooting also lands on the night before Election Day. A campus Election Day event had been planned, and there was no immediate word on whether those plans will change. Virginians head to the polls Tuesday in races followed on the UCP Election Tracker.
Urban City Podcast will update this story as officials release more information. Stay with our News coverage through the night and into Election Day.
