Baltimore police ask for public’s help identifying 2 shooters outside Morgan State University homecoming event

By Jennifer Henderson and Emma Tucker, CNN

(CNN) — Two shooters were involved in an attack at Morgan State University in Baltimore outside a crowded homecoming event this week, injuring five people, authorities confirmed Friday.

The Baltimore Police Department is asking for the public’s help in identifying four people seen walking near the scene of the Tuesday evening attack captured on video and still photos released by the agency on Friday. Anyone with information leading to an arrest and charges filed will receive a $9,000 reward, commissioner Richard Worley said during a Friday news conference.

The victims – four men and one woman, ages 18 to 22 – were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Four are students, Morgan State University Police Chief Lance Hatcher said. As of Friday morning, four of the five victims have been released from the hospital and one remains hospitalized in stable condition, Worley said.

The police department was able to confirm two shooters were involved in the incident from ballistic evidence and assistance from its federal partners, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to Worley. Detectives continue to review a “huge amount of video footage” and speak to potential witnesses as part of the investigation, he said.

City and university police have increased safety patrols throughout and around the campus, Worley added.

During Friday’s news conference, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott issued a stark reminder to those who are possibly becoming callous toward gun violence as it becomes more commonplace on campuses across the country.

“I want to be very clear about something else: that we will not let the cowardly, reckless, dark action of a few overtake the bright light of Black excellence that Morgan State University has been, is, and will continue to be for Baltimore and the world. We won’t allow that to happen,” Scott said.

The nightmare unfolded as a popular homecoming week event was letting out – a violent disruption marking one of at least 531 mass shootings with at least four victims so far this year in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and one of at least 17 shootings this year at a US college or university, including in North Carolina, Oklahoma and Michigan.

Students and teachers were ordered to shelter in place for hours as a SWAT team combed the campus dormitories. Before the shooting unfolded, Murphy Fine Arts auditorium had been filled almost to capacity Tuesday evening for the crowning of Mr. and Miss Morgan State University. The event draws families from all over the country, Wilson said, to the school where 9,000 students enrolled last fall.

The mayor has said he does not believe the shooting was racially motivated, noting the investigation is ongoing. At Morgan State, all classes and activities were canceled for the rest of the week, school president David Wilson wrote in a Wednesday update.

And all activities around homecoming will be either canceled or postponed – the first time in history the university has taken such action – until the suspects are found “and brought to justice,” Wilson said.

Wilson said during Friday’s news conference he spoke with all four students who were injured in the shooting, all of whom remain in “good, physical condition” and experienced “tremendous trauma.”

“They were excited to hear from their university president and I pledged to them that this university will immediately provide one-on-one counseling to each of them,” he said.

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CNN’s Nouran Salahieh, Joe Sutton, Sara Smart and Lauren Mascarenhas contributed to this report.