In the wake of a shooting that left five people injured during Oct. 3 homecoming festivities, Morgan State University leaders announced Tuesday they plan to build a wall around most of the northeast Baltimore campus and station security personnel at entrances and exits, reports the AP. The wall would extend existing barriers by about 8,000 feet, or 1.5 miles, to encircle 90% of campus and effectively "eliminate unfettered access," university President David Wilson said during a campus town hall.
"We're doing this, let me be clear, not to keep out our neighbors and our community writ large; we are doing it to keep out the bad actors," Wilson told an auditorium filled with students, faculty, and staff of the historically Black university. During Tuesday's town hall, Wilson and others faced a litany of questions from students and staff demanding to know what more could have been done to prevent the shooting. Students were walking from an auditorium to the campus student center, where a coronation ball was scheduled to start, when the gunfire erupted.
The campus was placed on lockdown and students were told to shelter in place because police initially thought there was an active shooter threat. No arrests have been made, but Baltimore police have released surveillance images of persons of interest and asked the public for help identifying them. Police said they believe the violence stemmed from a dispute and involved two shooters. They said the five victims, including four Morgan State students, likely weren't intended targets. All the victims were released from local hospitals last week.
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University officials said significant security upgrades were underway before the shooting, but they're now moving forward with more urgency. In addition to the wall, other potential upgrades include installing more metal detectors in campus buildings, exploring weapons detection technology, increasing police patrols, and building additional security guard booths. Wilson said the anticipated total cost is more than $22 million, with the Baltimore Sun reporting $6.4 million of that will go toward the wall, while another $4 million is earmarked for electronic locks. (A "spite wall" that stood near Morgan State University was recently torn down.)
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