A 19-year-old who allegedly shot five people on the Virginia State University campus was found hiding in a dormitory closet more than 14 hours later, and he wasn't even a student at the school.
Chesterfield County police arrested Camron Harris of Henrico, Virginia, around 4 p.m. Saturday after an hours-long manhunt that locked down the campus and left students, parents, and university staff rattled just days before the start of the new academic year. Harris faces four counts of malicious wounding and four counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He is being held without bail at the Chesterfield County jail.
The shooting erupted shortly before 1:30 a.m. Saturday outside residence halls on the VSU campus, a historically Black university in Chesterfield County, roughly 25 miles south of Richmond. Fox News reported that officers responded to the 3300 block of Boisseau Street at approximately 1:28 a.m. and found five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside the residence halls. The victims ranged in age from 17 to 23. Only one, a 20-year-old male, was enrolled at the university.
Harris lives in Henrico, approximately 30 miles from Virginia State University. He is not a student there. How he gained access to Seward Hall, the dormitory where police ultimately found him crouched in a closet, remains unexplained. Police have not revealed a possible motive for the shooting.
One victim, a 21-year-old, remained in critical condition. The 20-year-old VSU student was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released. The Washington Examiner reported that four of the five victims were not enrolled at VSU, and that authorities indicated there may be additional suspects, as multiple shooters were previously reported.
That detail, the possibility of more suspects, deepens the questions surrounding this case. Eight felony warrants were obtained against Harris, but police have signaled more charges may follow. The gap between five victims and only four malicious-wounding counts has not been publicly explained.
The university placed the campus on lockdown immediately after the shooting. That lockdown held for roughly 14 hours while police searched for the gunman. When officers finally located Harris in a Seward Hall closet around 4 p.m., the lockdown was lifted. Just The News reported that VSU police posted on X that the shooting occurred "in the area of the Quad Annexes involving multiple victims, who were transported to area hospitals."
The timing made a difficult situation worse. The shooting came just before fall classes were set to begin, when students and families were arriving on campus expecting orientation, not a manhunt.
Arthur Fridrich, a former VSU director of distance education, put it plainly. AP News reported his reaction:
"To start a new year with this event is very tragic. It casts a shadow in the minds of all students, and for some it will be difficult to rid their minds of this term."
The university issued a statement acknowledging the fear the incident caused:
"We recognize the concern this incident has caused among our students, parents, alumni, friends, and the broader VSU community. The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority."
VSU also said campus police would maintain an increased presence as the investigation continues. That is the minimum any parent would expect after a non-student allegedly walked onto campus, shot five people, and then spent more than half a day hiding in a dormitory closet before anyone found him.
The VSU shooting was not an isolated event that weekend. The New York Post reported on a string of shootings across the country in the same 24-hour window. Around 6:45 p.m. Saturday, four people were wounded at an outdoor concert in Charles Young Park in Kentucky, including two children, ages 4 and 14. Roughly 30 minutes later, a drive-by shooting on Chicago's South Side wounded four more, two of them critically. And early Sunday morning, around 1:40 a.m., police were called to the SoulBaila nightclub in Hartford, Connecticut, where one person was killed and four others wounded.
Four cities. At least 15 people shot. Two children among the wounded. One dead. All in a single weekend.
The pattern is familiar and grim. Communities absorb the violence, hospitals treat the victims, and the investigations grind forward. In the VSU case, at least one suspect is in custody. Whether others were involved remains an open question that Chesterfield County police have not yet answered.
Breitbart noted that Harris was found in Seward Hall roughly 14 hours after the 1:28 a.m. shooting. That timeline raises uncomfortable questions. A 19-year-old with no connection to the university allegedly opened fire on campus, then retreated into a dormitory building and remained undetected for the better part of a day. How did he get into the dorm? Was anyone checking building access during the lockdown? Did campus security have any prior contact with Harris?
None of those questions have been answered publicly. Parents sending their children to a state university have a right to expect that a non-student cannot walk onto campus, commit a violent crime, and then hide inside a student residence hall for 14 hours. The investigation will eventually fill in the gaps, but the fact that those gaps exist at all should concern every family with a student at VSU, or any campus that relies on similar security measures.
Harris sits in jail without bail. Five people carry the physical consequences of what happened early Saturday morning. And a university that should have been celebrating the start of a new year is instead explaining how a gunman hid in its own buildings all day. Accountability starts with honest answers, and so far, the answers are not there.
