Florida State University, where a gunman killed two people and injured six others on Thursday, has been haunted by gun violence before. In 2014, a gunman shot three people at a library on campus before he was killed by the police.
In that shooting, a burst of gunfire sent hundreds of bystanders fleeing or hiding among bookshelves at Strozier Library in the middle of the fall semester. The gunman, a 31-year-old graduate named Myron May, wounded two students and a library employee who survived.
The gunman had reloaded once before he was killed by the police outside the library building, the authorities said at the time.
The gunman had believed the government was watching him, and that he had detailed his fears in a written journal and videos, officials said at the time. He had no criminal record with the Tallahassee Police Department or the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, the authorities said in 2014.
The police chief at the time, Michael DeLeo, credited security measures that allowed only students and staff to enter the library with preventing more bloodshed. The gunman had been carrying a .38-caliber handgun and additional ammunition in his pockets, but he left the library after he was unable to make it past the security barriers, Chief DeLeo said then.
One of the students who was injured, Farhan Ahmed, was left paralyzed after the shooting, according to WTXL, a TV station in Tallahassee. In 2019, Florida State University and Mr. Ahmed reached a $1 million settlement, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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