Shooting at US university kills 1, injures over a dozen

A shooting during homecoming weekend at Tuskegee University in Alabama left one person dead and injured 16 others, a dozen of them by gunfire, authorities have said. One arrest was announced hours later.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said on Sunday that Jaquez Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, was taken into custody while leaving the scene of the campus shooting and had been found with a handgun with a machine gun conversion device.

The agency said in a statement that Myrick faces a federal charge of possession of a machine gun. It did not accuse him of using the gun in the shooting or provide additional details.

Authorities said an 18-year-old man who died was not a university student but that some of the injured were students.

Twelve people were wounded by gunfire, and four others sustained injuries not related to the gunshots, the state agency said. Several were being treated at East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika and Baptist South Hospital in Montgomery, the university said in a statement.

The FBI joined the investigation and said it was seeking tips from the public, as well as any video witnesses might have. It set up a site online for people to upload videos.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also was involved in the investigation, a local prosecutor said.

Tuskegee University cancelled classes on Monday and said grief counsellors would be available in the university's chapel to help students.

The parents of the victim were notified, and an autopsy was planned at the state's forensic centre in Montgomery, Macon County Coroner Hal Bentley told The Associated Press.

''Senseless act of violence''

The shooting left everyone in the university community shaken, said Amare Hardee, a senior from Tallahassee, Florida, who is president of the student government association.

"This senseless act of violence has touched each of us, whether directly or indirectly," he said at the school's homecoming convocation Sunday morning.

Sunday's shooting comes just over a year after four people were injured in a shooting at a Tuskegee University student housing complex.