Virginia State University Shooting Leaves Five Wounded As Police Seek Other Gunmen

August 17, 2026
By Mintesinot Nigussie

Police in Virginia are investigating whether additional people fired weapons during a shooting near Virginia State University that wounded five people, as a 19-year-old suspect remained in custody.

The shooting occurred at about 1:30am Saturday near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus and Chesterfield County police found five people with gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. The victims, aged between 17 and 23, included one Virginia State University student, police said.

Investigators are trying to establish what triggered the shooting and whether other people who fired weapons acted in self-defence or were involved in the attack, said Lieutenant James Lamb, commander of the Chesterfield County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit. Police have not said how many additional people may have fired.

"We don’t have specific locations that we are looking at yet as we are working on identifying them," Lamb said in an email response to questions from The Associated Press.

Camron Harris, 19, of Henrico, Virginia, was arrested more than 14 hours after the shooting after police found him hiding in a dormitory closet. He was being held without bond at the Chesterfield County jail and is due in state court Monday.

Harris faces four counts of malicious wounding and four counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment on his behalf.

The shooting prompted a campus lockdown as students prepared for the new academic year. The lockdown was lifted several hours before Harris was arrested after law enforcement determined there was no immediate threat to the campus, university officials said.

The incident came shortly after many students completed the university’s "New Trojans Experience" programme for incoming students. Classes are scheduled to resume Monday.

Virginia State University is a historically Black public university in Ettrick, about 24 miles south of Richmond. It has about 5,700 students and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for Black Americans.

Police said Harris was not a student at the university. The circumstances surrounding the shooting remain under investigation.

Source: FSX Business News