Student who killed parents at US university in custody

Chicago, United States | AFP | A university student who fatally shot his parents on his school campus in the US state of Michigan was arrested without incident after an hours-long manhunt, officials said early Saturday.

The episode had put the Central Michigan University campus into lockdown Friday morning — trapping students in classrooms and dormitories until mid-afternoon — while police conducted an expansive search for the 19-year-old suspected gunman.

James Eric Davis, described as a university student, was turned in by “an individual on a train passing through the north end of campus shortly after midnight”, university officials said. Officers arrested him without incident.

The suspect is accused of killing his father, a police officer, and mother in a shooting inside a dormitory building in what a university police spokesman described as a “family-type domestic issue.”

There were no other casualties.

The college campus in the city of Mount Pleasant in central Michigan was on lockdown hours after the 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) shooting, as federal, state and local law enforcement searched for Davis using helicopters and police dogs.

Heavily armed officers fanned out throughout the city, and residents and students were asked to stay inside and lock their doors.

University officials announced at 3:00 p.m. (2000 GMT) that students were finally being escorted out of buildings by police.

– Suspect known to police –

Davis, who was a resident of nearby Illinois state but attending college in Michigan, was known to law enforcement.

Police took him to a hospital the night before for what was believed to be a “drug-related type of incident — an overdose or a bad reaction to drugs,” campus police spokesman Larry Klaus told a news conference.

He was then released to hospital staff, Klaus said.

An Illinois state legislator identified Davis’s victims as his parents, who lived in a Chicago suburb.

“The shooting at Central Michigan University today strikes close to home,” tweeted the state representative, Emanuel Welch.