One shot dead, three wounded in US university ‘confrontation’

A student armed with a handgun killed a fellow student in a “confrontation” at an Arizona university early Friday that also left three others with multiple gunshot wounds, police said, in the latest shooting at a US college.

The deadly incident at Northern Arizona University (NAU) came hours before President Barack Obama was to meet families of victims of the October 1 shooting rampage at Umpqua Community College in Oregon that left nine people dead before the gunman killed himself.

The first emergency calls came through to police at 1:20 am <g data-gr-id="22">today,</g> when most NAU students would have been in bed at the sprawling university campus in the city of Flagstaff.

“Two of our student groups got into a confrontation. The confrontation turned physical and one of our students shot the other students. Four of our students were shot,” said Gregory Fowler, chief of NAU police. “We have one student deceased and three others being treated at the Flagstaff medical center.” 

The alleged shooter, named by police as freshman Steven Jones, 18, was taken into custody and did not attempt to escape arrest. All the victims were male students.

It was not immediately clear what the confrontation was <g data-gr-id="21">about</g> but Jones was cooperating with police, Fowler said.