A former student shot three people in a computer room at a Phoenix community college, injuring one of them critically, authorities said. The gunman fled, but a suspect was arrested nearby.
The shooting on Thursday at South Mountain Community College was part of a running dispute between the suspect and one of the victims, said Sergeant Andy Hill, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department.
“This was not a random shooter going around the campus shooting,” Hill said, adding that two of the injured people were struck by stray bullets.
The suspect was identified as Rodney Smith, who police said was a former student at the college. Details on when he attended the school were not immediately available.
Smith, 22, was arrested at a home a few kilometers away within a half-hour of the first emergency call about the shooting, police spokesman Reuben Gonzales said.
Also arrested at the home were Smith’s parents and three other people on charges of interfering with an investigation and failure to obey a police officer, Gonzales said.
Yessenia Lara, an 18-year-old student who witnessed the shooting, said the gunman was one of two men who had been fighting in the computer building.
“I saw someone get punched and then I heard three shots after that. Everybody basically ducked and the shooter got away,” Lara said, adding that the victims were yelling in pain.
Firefighters took the victims to the hospital, said Mark Faulkner, a division chief for the Phoenix Fire Department. Their identities and information on their injuries were not released.
A 19-year-old man was in critical condition at Maricopa Medical Center, while a 20-year-old woman was upgraded from critical to stable condition on Thursday night and a 17-year-old boy was in stable condition, hospital officials said.
College spokesman Robert Pryce said the school was in lockdown for about an hour. About 20 to 30 people were in the computer lab during the shooting and as many as 300 people were on campus, he said. The computer lab is open to the public.
An electronic sign outside the school said all classes were canceled on Thursday and students could be seen leaving the campus calmly about 90 minutes after the shooting. Pryce said the campus would be closed on Friday, which is typical during the summer.
Situated at the base of Phoenix’s South Mountain, the college has more than 8,000 students. Most students are seeking two-year-degrees and certificates of completion.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in
RSS