14일 오전(현지시간) 미국 미시시피 주 클 리블랜드의 델타 주립 대학에서 총격 사건이 발생해 남자 교수 1명이 숨졌다고 미국 언론이 보도했다.
경찰과 학교 당국은 오전 10시 45분께 캠퍼스를 즉각 폐쇄하고 용의자 검거에 나섰다.
볼리바 카운티 경찰은 미시시피 주와 아칸소 주 경계에 있는 델타 주립 대학에 서 이날 오전 총격 사건이 벌어져 자신의 방에서 업무를 보던 50대 중반의 남자 교 수가 용의자의 총에 맞아 사망했다고 밝혔다.
희생자의 신원은 역사학과 교수인 이선 슈미트로 알려졌다.
미국 언론에 따르면, 이 학교는 이날 학교 설립 90주년 행사를 열 예정이었다.
학교 측은 트위터를 통해 학생과 교수, 교직원에게 안전한 곳으로 대피할 것을 지시하고 강의실 또는 실내에 머물되 창문에서 떨어져 있으라고 당부했다.
용의자의 인상착의와 범행 동기 등은 아직 알려지지 않았다.
경찰은 헬리콥터를 띄워 용의자 행방을 쫓고 있고, 경찰 특수기동대(SWAT)팀과 수사 당국은 대학 건물을 샅샅히 뒤지며 용의자를 수색 중이다.
그러나 사건 발생 2시간이 지난 뒤에도 교내에서 용의자를 찾지 못한 당국은 이 미 수사망을 피해 용의자가 학교 바깥으로 나간 것으로 추정하고 수사 범위를 확대 하고 있다.
워런 스트레인 미주리 주 공공안전국 대변인은 "용의자가 현재 교내에 있는 것 으로 보이지 않는다"면서 "용의자의 예상 가능한 행선지 또한 현재로서는 불분명하 다"고 밝혔다.
지역 언론인 클레리언 레저는 필 브라이언트 미시시피 주지사가 주 공공안전국 장, 이 대학 총장과의 전화 통화에서 미시시피 주 경찰, 미시시피 주 수사국 요원을 급파해 용의자를 체포하는 데 전폭 지원을 약속했다고 전했다.
그러나 이 대학의 영문과 교수인 빌 헤이스는 AP 통신과의 전화 인터뷰에서 "응 급시 캠퍼스 내 전반적인 상황을 통제해야 하는 중앙 통제 센터에서 나오는 소식은 전혀 없고 전부 소문일 뿐"이라며 학교 측이 긴급 상황에서 학생과 교수들과의 소통 에 전혀 신경을 쓰고 있지 않다고 전했다. (연합)
<관련 영문 기사>
Professor fatally shot on US campus; suspect at large
A professor was killed in his office at Delta State University in Mississippi, forcing terrified students and teachers to hunker down in classrooms as investigators searched for another school employee in connection with the killing, officials said Monday.
Cleveland Police Chief Charles “Buster” Bingham said during a news conference that authorities have identified Shannon Lamb as a “person of interest” in the shooting of history professor Ethan Schmidt. Lamb is no longer believed to be on the Delta State campus.
Lamb received a doctorate in education from Delta State University in the spring 2015, according to a copy of his resume posted on the university’s website. He started working there in 2009 and taught geography and education classes, and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, according to the resume.
Bingham also said police have information suggesting Lamb may have been involved in another slaying in the south Mississippi city of Gautier, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) away.
Gautier police spokesman Matthew Hoggatt told The Sun Herald (http://bit.ly/1gmKAle) that a woman was found dead in her home, and that Lamb is the suspect in her death.
"We’re working right now under the assumption that both events are related,” Hoggatt said. “We hope that they are not. But at this point in time, information indicates that they probably are linked in some way, shape or form.”
Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Johnny Poulos said investigators are searching for a Dodge car that they believe Lamb is driving.
The 3,500-student university in Cleveland, in Mississippi’s Delta region near the Arkansas-Mississippi state line, was first put on lockdown around 10:45 a.m. amid reports of an active shooter. Everyone on campus was told to take shelter, away from windows.
Charlie King was in a history class down the hall from where the shooting occurred.
“A few minutes into the class, we heard these popping noises and we all went completely silent,” he said.
Some people thought that it might be a desk or door closing or firecrackers, but King said he thought it sounded like gunshots. A few minutes later a police officer _ gun drawn _ burst into the windowless room and ordered everyone to get against the wall away from the door. Some people also hid in a storage closet, King said. The officer didn’t explain what was going on, but King said the students understood.
“We put two and two together,” he said. The professor gave the students chairs to throw if the shooter came in, said King’s friend, Christopher Walker Todd.
Eventually police ushered the students into another building and questioned them about what they’d seen and how many shots they heard.
Freshman Noah Joyner, 18, was in his dorm building when reports of an active shooter began to spread. He hunkered down in a bathroom and heard others desperate to get in.
“There were like people banging on the doors to have somebody let them in,” said Joyner, a swimmer at the college. “It was pretty terrifying.”
Charly Abraham was teaching a class of about 28 students at the university’s Delta Music Institute when he and the students received a message through the university’s alert system.
“Everybody’s phone just sort of went off at the same time,” Abraham said. Then a staff member came in and told them that the campus was on lockdown.
About two hours or so after the initial lockdown, about 25 heavily armed police officers swept through the building, Abraham said. All of the students were sent back to their dorms and other people such as faculty and students who live off campus were sent to the university’s coliseum, Abraham said, though most were later allowed to leave.
The slain professor directed the first-year seminar program and specialized in Native American and colonial history, said Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor at the school, who called him “a gentleman in every sense of the word.”
“Dr. Ethan Schmidt was a terrific family man, a good friend, a true son of Peabody, Kansas, and his beloved Emporia State University,” he said. (AP)
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