Tennesee, the site of a recent attack on a Christian elementary school that left several young children and teachers killed in a hate-filled attack by a transgender individual, is now the scene of another harrowing episode.
Early reports place the site of an active shooter situation at the Fox 13 building in Memphis. A post on Twitter suggests that law enforcement is already in place and has the shooter barricaded in a nearby building. The entire Fox 13 building has reportedly been evacuated.
There is no news as of this writing of any injuries or deaths,
“Currently there is an active shooter situation After shots were fired at the Fox 13 building near the University of Memphis campus, and multiple law enforcement and other agencies are on the scene. the entire Fox 13 news building in the vicinity has been evacuated. The suspect is currently barricaded in a nearby building in a bathroom no injuries have been reported,” a tweet is captioned alongside a short video from a news release.
🚨#BREAKING: Active Shooter situation after shots fired at Fox 13 news building forces everyone to evacuate
Currently there is an active shooter situation After shots were fired at the fox 13 building near University of Memphis campus, and multiple law… pic.twitter.com/9H5sf3pHXt
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) May 2, 2023
“And this is Sheila O’Connor with Fox 13, so if you guys haven’t heard, we did have a shooting here at our station, a guy shot into our building,” the reporter in the video states.
“We are streaming here on my Facebook page but also you are on our boxer team page. And Shilo Connor we got Jeremy Pierre, kind of a little bit of an update of what’s going on right now,” she continued.
“They’ve evacuated our building. You probably hear the helicopters up in the sky that’s going on right now as well. What we know is the guy who shot towards our building is actually locked himself in the bathroom out of business right next to us, which is one of the reasons why they’ve evacuated to all of us here,” the brief report ends.
Fox 8 described the situation ebginning after shooters were fired inside the lobby, with no injuries reported. A SWAT team since arrived and was attempting to “take the suspect into custody” after having fled to a restaurant in the vicinity. Fox 8 wrote:
WHBQ, the Fox affiliate, reports a shot was fired inside their lobby, but no one was injured.
University officials say police were called to the scene just 11:30 a.m. for an “active shooter situation” near Highland and Midland Avenue.
Memphis police say the armed person is sheltered inside Ubee’s, a nearby hamburger restaurant
A SWAT team was attempting to take the suspect into custody, the Associated Press reported.
The University of Memphis is located close to the Fox 13 building and issued a statement urging all students, faculty, and staff to remain indoors. The statement, via WFMY, states:
The University and Police Services are issuing this message in a continuing effort to communicate safety information to our students, faculty, staff and visitors.
On May 2, 2023, at approximately 11:27 a.m., the Memphis Police Department responded to an active shooter situation off campus near Highland and Midland. The suspect has been contained near Highland and Mynders. All faculty, staff and students are advised to avoid Highland until further notice and remain indoors if possible.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the University Police or the Memphis Police Department.
This is a developing story.
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded Twitter video.
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