WSMV Channel 4 Student shot, another robbed inside TSU dorm

Students, parents and university leaders are raising questions about security at Tennessee State University, as a student recovers from being shot on campus early Sunday morning.

And as it turns out, the student who was shot was not the only victim that day.

Another student was robbed in the same building, Watson Hall dormitory, just hours before the shooting.

The 18-year-old student who was shot should make a recovery. That's certainly the good news.

The bad news, however, is that parents and the university's police chief are equally frustrated about the glaring gaps in safety.

TSU Police Chief Richard Briggance tells Channel 4 it took too long to alert the campus that a gunman was on the loose.

"There are a couple of ways you can get in. One is you can piggy-back off someone who has a fob, an access mechanism to get in the building. Or somebody had to let you in, or you break in. But there was no sign of a break-in," Briggance said.

After the shooting, there was also a delay in alerting students. A text message did not go out soon enough. In fact, Monday, some students still had not heard about what happened.

"I think there was a glitch in the system, and the glitch being the operator couldn't log on in a timely fashion. And that delayed us getting out the text message in a timely fashion," Briggance said.

Monday, police at TSU arrested two people at the very same dorm as the shooting. One was arrested for drugs and the other for trespassing. Neither is a student, and officials say it is too soon to say if either played a part in the shooting or robbery.

"In the robbery, I don't think there was a failure on the TSU side. I do believe there was a failure on the side of the people who live in the dorm," Briggance said.

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