© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Suspect In Custody After Deadly Shooting At Central Michigan University

Two people were fatally shot in a dormitory on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant on Friday morning. They were the parents of a student who was apprehended by police.
Rebecca Steward
/
Flickr
Two people were fatally shot in a dormitory on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant on Friday morning. They were the parents of a student who was apprehended by police.

Updated at 1:52 a.m. ET Saturday

The suspect in the fatal shooting of two people at Central Michigan University is now in custody, the school said early Saturday.

Nineteen-year-old James Eric Davis Jr. was "seen and reported by an individual on a train passing through the north end of campus shortly after midnight. Law enforcement personnel responded and arrested the suspect without incident,"

Two victims who were shot and killed Friday morning at Central Michigan University were identified by the university's police department as James Eric Davis Sr. and Diva Jeneen Davis, the suspect's parents.

Police spent much of the day Friday in search of Davis. Authorities a photo of the 19-year-old, who had been considered armed and dangerous.

Police have arrested James Eric Davis Jr., identified as the suspect in two fatal shootings at Central Michigan University on Friday.
/ AP
/
AP
Police have arrested James Eric Davis Jr., identified as the suspect in two fatal shootings at Central Michigan University on Friday.

University officials revealed that Davis had been taken to a local hospital the previous night for a "drug-related incident" and was released about an hour before Friday morning's shooting.

Davis' father was a police officer in Bellwood, Ill. His mother, according to her Facebook page, began working as a real estate broker in December 2017. They lived in Plainfield, a suburb of Chicago, according to The Associated Press, and arrived on campus Friday to pick up their son for the beginning of the school's spring break. University police said the couple were shot at Campbell Hall, a dormitory. The university tweeted that there were no additional injuries.

The campus went on lockdown as local and state officials began the search for the alleged gunman. All planned campus events and Saturday classes were canceled.

Parents arriving to pick up students before spring break were redirected to a hotel near campus while police continued the search for Davis.

The university is located in Mount Pleasant, a town of about 26,000 people about an hour north of Lansing.

All of Isabella County's schools were on lockdown, accordingto the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun, which reports that state police had sent a tactical team and a helicopter to look for the suspect.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Laurel Wamsley is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She reports breaking news for NPR's digital coverage, newscasts, and news magazines, as well as occasional features. She was also the lead reporter for NPR's coverage of the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.
Vanessa Romo is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers breaking news on a wide range of topics, weighing in daily on everything from immigration and the treatment of migrant children, to a war-crimes trial where a witness claimed he was the actual killer, to an alleged sex cult. She has also covered the occasional cat-clinging-to-the-hood-of-a-car story.
Parth Shah is an associate producer at Hidden Brain. He came to NPR in 2016 as a Kroc Fellow.
KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and award-winning podcasts.
Your donation helps keep nonprofit journalism free and available for everyone.