Seeking answers: Police, university struggle to understand what led to student's breakdown, double homicide
Apr 9, 2018March 2, the only thing most Central Michigan University students were concerned about was leaving for spring break.At 9:02 a.m. a Central Alert emergency message was broadcast. “The CMU Police Department is responding to a report of shots fired near the fourth floor area of Campbell Hall, again, shots fired near the fourth floor area of Campbell Hall. Please stay clear of the area.” A few minutes later, CMU issued a campus-wide lockdown that lasted into the early evening. For more than six hours, faculty and students were confronted with the reality that a shooting on campus had claimed two lives. From inside locked classrooms, offices and residence halls, they watched as the national conversation on guns and schools converged on Mount Pleasant. Through social media, texts and phone calls, they reached out to loved ones. Many marked themselves as “safe” after Facebook launched its safety check for “The Shooting at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.” Parents gathered together at the Comfort Inn waiting for buses to transport their children from campus and to their waiting arms.Students will return to CMU this week forever changed.James Eric Davis Jr. Administrators and police say they are still looking for the answers: Why did 19-year-old sophomore James Eric Davis Jr. walk out to the family’s car, get a handgun and return to his room to fatally shoot his father and mother?The night beforeOn March 1, as some of his fellow students prepared for Friday classes, Davis Jr. was on a mission to find a police officer. When he finally found an officer working in the Towers residence complex, Davis Jr. told him someone was trying to murder him.Police interviewed the person Davis Jr. accused of threatening him. When police viewed surveillance footage of Davis Jr. and the other student, they saw them laughing together as if they were friends. Police concluded the person was no threat, but they were now concerned about Davis Jr. After police told Davis Jr. they believed the person did not po... (Central Michigan Life)
