Current:Home > InvestMan jailed after Tuskegee University shooting says he fired his gun, but denies shooting at anyone -ProfitLogic
Man jailed after Tuskegee University shooting says he fired his gun, but denies shooting at anyone
Rekubit View
Date:2025-04-07 14:02:16
A man accused of having a machine gun at Tuskegee University during a hail of gunfire that left one man dead and at least 16 others hurt told a federal agent that he fired his weapon during the shooting, but denied aiming at anyone.
The new details are contained in a newly unsealed federal complaint, which describes how one officer ran toward the gunfire. That officer found a dead body, and then saw Jaquez Myrick with a Glock pistol, the complaint states.
Myrick was later questioned by state and federal agents, who asked him whether he discharged his firearm during the shooting.
“Myrick then confessed to discharging the Glock but denied shooting at anyone,” a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who took part in the interview, wrote in the complaint.
Myrick, 25, of Montgomery, is accused of having a weapon with a machine gun conversion device and faces a federal charge of possession of a machine gun. The complaint does not accuse him of shooting anyone. No attorneys who could speak on Myric’s behalf are listed in the federal court documents, and it was unclear from jail records whether he has one.
The complaint also details the chaotic scene and how Myrick was apprehended.
A Tuskegee police officer, one of the first to respond to reports of gunshots on the campus, heard the gunfire immediately but wasn’t able to drive his patrol car through a parking lot because it was so jammed with people and cars, according to the court records.
Officer Alan Ashley then left his car and ran toward the gunfire, soon finding a man dead from a gunshot wound, according to the complaint. Ashley then saw Myrick, armed with a Glock pistol, and took him into custody, the complaint states.
The city officer also gave the gun to the special agent who wrote the complaint.
“During a field examination, I found the pistol to function as a machine gun,” the federal agent wrote.
The shooting came as the school’s 100th homecoming week was winding down. A dozen of the victims were hit by gunfire, with the others injured as they tried to escape the chaotic scene, authorities said. Many of the injured were students.
The man killed was identified as 18-year-old La’Tavion Johnson, of Troy, Alabama, who was not a student, the local coroner said.
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 video.
The shooting is the latest case in which a “machine gun conversion device” was found, something law officers around the nation have expressed grave concerns about. The proliferation of these types of weapons is made possible by small pieces of metal or plastic made with a 3D printer or ordered online.
Guns with conversion devices have been used in several mass shootings, including one that left four dead at a Sweet Sixteen party in Alabama last year and another that left six people dead at a bar district in Sacramento, California.
“It takes two or three seconds to put in some of these devices into a firearm to make that firearm into a machine gun instantly,” Steve Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said in AP’s report on the weapons earlier this year.
The shooting left the entire 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. Two visitors to the campus were shot and two students were hurt while trying to leave the scene of what campus officials described as an “unauthorized party” in September 2023, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
About 3,000 students are enrolled at the university about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Alabama’s capital city of Montgomery.
The university was the first historically Black college to be designated a Registered National Landmark in 1966. It was also designated a National Historic Site in 1974, according to the school’s website.
veryGood! (8)
Related
- At site of suspected mass killings, Syrians recall horrors, hope for answers
- US says it found health and safety violations at a GM joint venture battery plant in Ohio
- 2 off-duty police officers shot at Philadelphia International Airport
- Northwestern State football player shot and killed near campus, coach calls it ‘a tremendous loss’
- B.A. Parker is learning the banjo
- Get $160 Worth of Sunday Riley Brightening Skincare Products for Just $88
- Republicans tweak Brewers stadium repair plan to cut the total public contribution by $54 million
- Enjoy These Spine-Tingling Secrets About the Friday the 13th Movies
- Woman dies after Singapore family of 3 gets into accident in Taiwan
- All's 'Fair Play' in love and office promotions
Ranking
- This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
- European Union launches probe as Musk's X claims it removed accounts, content amid Israel war
- Gay and targeted in Uganda: Inside the extreme crackdown on LGBTQ rights
- Offset's Lavish Birthday Gift for Cardi B Will Make Your Jaw Drop
- How to watch the 'Blue Bloods' Season 14 finale: Final episode premiere date, cast
- 7 elementary school students injured after North Carolina school bus veers off highway, hits building
- I mean, it's called 'Dicks: The Musical.' What did you expect?
- NYU law student has job offer withdrawn after posting anti-Israel message
Recommendation
New data highlights 'achievement gap' for students in the US
Timeline: How a music festival in Israel turned into a living nightmare
French media say a teacher was killed and others injured in a rare school stabbing
Tomorrow X Together's Taylor Swift Crush Is Sweeter Than Fiction
House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
How Travis Barker’s Daughter Alabama Barker Gets Her Lip Filler to Look Natural
Company profits, UAW profit-sharing checks on the line in strike at Ford Kentucky Truck
Trial date set for Memphis man accused of raping a woman a year before jogger’s killing