Tallahassee police investigate the scene of a shooting outside the Strozier library on the Florida State University campus (AP photo)
The gunman who shot three people at Florida State University's library early on Thursday before being killed by police was a lawyer who graduated from the school, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
The official said the shooter was Myron May, who graduated from Florida State before attending Texas Tech University's law school. The official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the name.
May was fatally shot early on Thursday after he shot three people at the Florida State library. Two are hospitalized and one has been released.
Abigail Taunton, who runs a foster home in the Florida Panhandle, told the AP that May had recently been staying at a guest house she owns. She said police interviewed her husband, David, after the shooting.
"He's just a boy our kids grew up with that we let stay in one of our guest houses for a while," she said. "He's moving back home from Texas and we were trying to help him get on his feet.
The shooting happened about 12:30 a.m., sending hundreds of students who had been up all night studying for exams scrambling for cover in the book aisles and barricading themselves in with desks. Three students were wounded before police killed the gunman in a shootout, authorities said.
Police and FSU officials called the shooting an "isolated incident," but have not released many details, including how far May made it into Strozier Library. FSU's compact campus is located less than a mile from downtown Tallahassee and the state Capitol.
"This person just for whatever reason produced a handgun and then began shooting students in the library," FSU Police Chief David Perry said.
Students inside the multistory library heard about half a dozen gunshots. Students began screaming that someone was shooting at them and flipped over chairs in their race to take cover.
Two of the victims were taken to a local hospital. FSU officials said a third student was only grazed by a bullet and was treated at the scene and released.
Tallahassee and Florida State University police confronted the gunman just outside the library that sits in the middle of the campus and ordered him to drop his handgun, but he fired a shot at them and they unleashed a volley of shots, Tallahassee Police spokesman Dave Northway said.
Hours after the shooting, detectives could be seen inspecting the body of May, who was lying face down at the top of an access ramp just outside the library. A baseball cap lay nearby.
The shooting prompted a campus alert that urged students to take shelter and stay away from doors and windows. After the shooting, FSU officials announced classes would be canceled for Thursday.