The question of how Saturday night’s shooting occurred rang throughout the community despite additional campus-safety measures and a 9 p.m. curfew for Morgan State’s homecoming. 

The shooting occurred at 10 p.m. outside of the University Student Center. The Morgan State University Police Department and Allied Universal officers helped clear the shooting scene.

Lance Hatcher, chief of police for the Morgan State University Police Department, said the campus shut down at 9 p.m. took longer than anticipated because of the large number of attendees.

He led the university’s homecoming improvement committee along with Kevin Banks, vice president of student affairs. The committee, organized by university President David Wilson, created a comprehensive plan to ensure everyone’s safety at homecoming.

Hatcher said there were efforts to remove people from the campus after 9 p.m, but the term enforcement “would be a stretch.”

“Enforcement, that would be a stretch of a term with the sheer numbers of people that we had on campus and then to stay within the homecoming spirit. We don’t want to escalate any behaviors or issues by enforcement. Enforcement can lead all the way up to arrest and that sort of thing,” Hatcher said.

“Our goal was not to escalate things to that level,” he said.

Hatcher said one of the many efforts the police department will consider to ensure the campus’ safety during future homecomings is reducing the number of guests on campus.

“We can easily control the number of vehicles through road closures, parking lot closures and that sort of thing. But [Morgan] being an open campus, it’s extremely difficult to control who’s able to just walk on campus, and that’s where our challenge lies,” he said.

This year’s shooting is the second one the university has experienced in two consecutive years.

In an email to the Morgan community, Wilson said Morgan would not welcome those who come to the university’s homecoming to cause trouble.

“You will be hearing more from me regarding my thinking as it relates to future homecomings. One thing that I can assure you right now is that what I’ve seen in the last two years is not what this university will accept,” Wilson wrote.

Hatcher said that the university will analyze this year’s measures, how well they worked and what Morgan can improve.

Larry Jones, assistant vice president of the office of public relations and strategic communications, said that the university is still assessing the measures from this year. 

“The University is currently assessing the processes and outcomes of this most recent homecoming and will leverage its findings to make a determination regarding future homecomings,” Jones wrote in an email to the Spokesman. “No official decisions have been made and we do not anticipate any announcements in this regard until the full assessment is concluded.”

The Spokesman attempted to schedule an interview with University President David Wilson. However, the Office of Public Relations and Strategic Communications will not coordinate interviews with Wilson regarding the shooting at this time.