Gunman kills 1 at university in Seattle

SEATTLE -- A man armed with a shotgun and a knife opened fire Thursday in a building at a small Seattle university, fatally wounding one person before a student subdued him with pepper spray as he tried to reload, Seattle police said.

A student building monitor at Seattle Pacific University disarmed the gunman after he entered the foyer at Otto Miller Hall, and several other students jumped on top of him and pinned him down until police officers arrived, police said.

A 19-year-old man died at Harborview Medical Center. Three other people were injured.

A critically injured 20-year-old woman was taken to surgery, hospital spokesman Susan Gregg said. A 24-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were in satisfactory condition. Gregg said one of those two men was not shot.

None of the victims was immediately identified.

Police said they had arrested one man. None of those taken to the hospital was the arrested man, Gregg said.

Later Thursday, police said the suspect in custody was a white man "approximately 26 years of age" and is not a student at the university.

The university locked down its campus for several hours, and it alerted students and staff members to stay inside. Some students were taking final exams in the same building the gunman entered.

The situation was particularly tense when police initially reported that they were searching for a second suspect. They later said no one else was involved.

The school canceled classes and other activities for today.

About 4,270 undergraduate and graduate students attend the private Christian university. Its 40-acre campus is in a leafy residential neighborhood about 10 minutes from downtown Seattle.

"We're a community that relies on Jesus Christ for strength, and we'll need that at this point in time," said Daniel Martin, president of Seattle Pacific University.

On Thursday evening, people packed the First Free Methodist Church on campus for a service of prayers and song. People crowded into the building, and dozens of others gathered on a lawn near the church and formed their own groups as the sun set.

Jillian Smith was taking a math test on the second-floor of Otto Miller Hall when a lockdown was ordered.

She heard police yelling and banging on doors in the hallway. The professor locked the classroom door, and the 20 or so students sat on the ground, lining up at the front of the classroom.

"We were pretty much freaking out," said Smith, 20, a sophomore. "People were texting family and friends, making sure everyone was OK."

About 45 minutes later, police escorted them out of the building two by two, she said. On the way, they passed the lobby, where she saw bullet casings and what appeared to be blood in the lobby carpet and splatter on the wall.

"Seeing blood made it real," Smith said. "I didn't think something like this would happen at our school."

Ashley Springer, 26, was in a classroom with her professor and a few other students when a woman with a bullhorn came into the room and told them to lock the door, pull down the shades and turn out the lights.

Springer, a senior, called Seattle Pacific University "a really close community."

David Downs, a 22-year-old senior who is graduating next week, said he left campus 30 minutes before the shooting.

"I'm in utter shock," said Downs, who is a point guard on the university's basketball team. "It's so unbelievable to me that this could happen on our campus. It's the last thing I would have ever thought could happen here."

"It puts things in perspective," he said. "Anything can happen, even on a small Christian campus."

Information for this article was contributed by Donna Gordon Blankinship and Rachel La Corte of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/06/2014

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