UNC Carolina active shooter updates: Suspect arrested after faculty member killed during Chapel Hill shooting

North Carolina governor Roy Cooper yesterday issued a statement, calling the shooting incident a “tragic way to start a new semester”.

“My office is in communication with law enforcement and officials at UNC-Chapel Hill who are taking precautions to protect campus safety following today’s shooting,” he said in a statement shared on X, previously known as Twitter.

“This is a tragic way to start a new semester and the state will provide any assistance necessary to support the UNC community.”

In an additional statement, Mr Cooper said he spoke with Orange County sheriff Blackwood and Department of Public Safety Secretary Buffaloe and “pledged all state resources needed to capture the shooter and protect the UNC campus”.

After the university went into lockdown, students crowded gym locker rooms away from windows in order to stay safe.

Adrian Lanier, a sophomore computer science major, said he and others sat against a wall in a gym, trying to stay as far away as possible from doors and windows as rumors spread.

“No one really felt safe enough to leave. I didn’t,” Mr Lanier told Associated Press.

Oliver Katz, an exchange student from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, said some students crowded into gym locker rooms to get away from windows while others crouched in corners and sat on the floor.

“This never happens where I’m from,” Mr Katz said.

“It was intense. But I was a little surprised that other people weren’t panicking that much.”Mr Katz, who has only been on campus for two weeks, said he’s worried his home university will bring the exchange students back early.

“I don’t want to leave. I like it here, and I do still feel safe.”

Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz apologised to students who are “feeling uncertain about your safety right now”.

This is the second week of the fall semester at the college.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has cancelled all classes for today following the killing of a faculty member on campus.

All non-mandatory operations have been suspended as well, the university said in a statement.“Due to today’s incident on campus, UNC-Chapel Hill will operate at a Condition 2 on Tuesday,” the statement read.

“Condition 2” – which is one level short of a complete campus closure – will remain in place until 11.59pm on 29 August, the university said.

Police have apprehended a suspect in Monday’s UNC shooting, but that’s only the beginning.

Officials have yet to name the man or levy any official charges in the incident, which left one faculty member dead.

“We are looking for a firearm. It is too early to determine if the firearm was legally obtained, and we’re not prepared at this time to what kind of weapon it was,” UNC police chief Brian James said in a press conference on Monday.

A gunman killed a faculty member in a science building at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, forcing the college to temporarily go into a lockdown.

Police arrested the suspect over three hours after the initial reports of shots fired came in from Caudill Labs, officials said at a news conference.

Emergency sirens were sounded about two minutes after a 911 caller reported gunfire around 1pm at the laboratory in the heart of the flagship campus.

The students and faculty members reportedly barricaded themselves in dorm rooms, offices and classrooms until the lockdown was lifted around 4.15pm.

“This loss is devastating, and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community,” chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said.

Students went so far as to jump out of windows to flee an active shooter on the campus of the University of North Carolina.

WRAL captured the chaos in this video.

A shooting on the campus of the University of North Carolina set off chaos as students sought to flee after getting an emergency alert on their phones. “I rushed outside assuming that would be the best location since they would most likely target larger crowds since I was in a large lecture of maybe 250–300 people,” one student told Fox News. “Once I went outside, I saw people running in the direction of the Genome Science building. I decided to take the corner and investigate to see what was going on.

“One of my friends worked with him in the chemistry lab. However, he graduated this past year and was not [there]. Overall, it was extremely unexpected. I would always see stuff in the news but never expected to see things like this in person first-hand taking place,” the student added.

“I am devastated by today’s shooting in one of our campus buildings, a place where we conduct our important work of teaching, mentoring, and research every day,” Chancellor Kevin M Guskiewicz said in a statement on Monday. “This shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted on our campus.”

The individual was the only person injured in the shooting, police said.

School officials say they will not release the name of the dead faculty member until their next of kin have been notified.

More details in our full story.

A UNC student who knew the man arrested for Monday’s shooting said he was stunned to learn his colleague was wanted for allegedly fatally shooting a faculty member.

“I would have never guessed that he would be the kind of person who could possibly be capable of this kind of thing,” graduate student Aiden Scott told WRAL. “He was always very quiet.”

“Every single time he would talk to me, he seemed very nice. When I saw his face in the reports online, I was beyond shocked.”

Police have not formally named the suspect, though his name has been published in local media sources.