Michigan State University survivors lived through previous mass shooting

Some students who survived Tuesday evening’s mass shooting at Michigan State University, which killed three and critically wounded five, lived through another mass shooting in 2021, a US congresswoman and survivor have said.

During the gun attack, Michigan student Emma Riddle posted on Twitter that she had survived a mass shooting 14 months ago at Oxford High School, about 130km from the recent shootings.

The murders at Oxford High School were committed by a boy, 15, who killed four pupils with a handgun and wounded seven, including one of the teachers.

“Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone ‘I love you’,” she wrote on Twitter. “When will this end?”

A mother also told CNN that her daughter had survived both shootings.

Local Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin expressed her anger that more young people had been senselessly killed locally and recounted her experiences of both shootings to US news outlet TMZ.

“What was the hardest for me yesterday was the cameras panning through the crowd of all these students who had been evacuated who were terrified, and there was a kid, or young man wearing an Oxford Strong sweatshirt, which are the sweatshirts we handed out after the Oxford incident,” Ms Slotkin said.

Ms Slotkin had previously told reporters how she was “filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in our schools”.

She said some of the survivors of the Oxford High School attack had been caught up in Tuesday's incident.

“We have children in Michigan who are living through their second school shooting in under a year and a half. If this is not a wake-up call to do something, then I don't know what is,” she said.

Police are still looking for a motive in the killings after the suspect, Anthony McRae, 43, took his own life.

Investigators said on Wednesday that a note had been found on his body, threatening to attack two more schools.

The “investigation revealed that McRae had a history of mental health issues”, Ewing Township police said on Facebook.

The police statement said schools in the area had been closed out of caution on the day of the attack.

A neighbour of the alleged gunman, who did not want to be named, told Reuters he would often fire his gun at home and police were frequently being called on to visit his residence. He described him as a “hell raiser.”

The suspect's father, Michael McRae, told The Washington Post his son was arrested on the charge of carrying a loaded firearm without a concealed-weapons permit in 2019 and later lied about having a gun inside his home.