Police found the gunshot victims near the university’s residence halls.
Published On 15 Aug 2026
A shooting at a university campus in the US state of Virginia has wounded five people and led to an hours-long lockdown.
The shooting early on Saturday morning occurred near Virginia State University’s Quad Annexes, the school said in a statement.
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It involved multiple suspects and injured five people, all of whom are hospitalised, including one in critical condition, according to the university.
“VSU Police and the Chesterfield County Police Department are actively investigating,” the university statement said. “The campus community should continue to avoid the area and follow all law enforcement instructions.”
The school announced at 8:21am (12:21 GMT) that an earlier campus-wide lockdown had been lifted, while a “significant law enforcement presence” remains on campus as part of an ongoing investigation. It encouraged anyone with information about the incident to contact Chesterfield County Police, which is leading the investigation.
The shooting took place just two days before the university’s fall semester is due to start.
Virginia State University is a historically Black university located in Ettrick, Virginia, about 24 miles south of the state capital of Richmond.
It has about 5,700 students and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for Black Americans.
Gun violence at colleges and universities in the United States is relatively common, with the Gun Violence Archive, a national tracker, recording 100 incidents where individuals were wounded or killed in shootings at higher education institutions in 2025.
It recorded a total of 75 shootings that year.
One of the most high-profile attacks in recent years occurred in Virginia, when a gunman fatally shot 32 people and wounded 17 hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, also known as Virginia Tech, in 2007.
Earlier this year, a man opened fire at a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) group at Old Dominion University, killing an instructor and wounding two others.
