EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The 43-year-old gunman who killed three students and wounded five others at Michigan State University had no apparent connection to the campus, police said Tuesday as they searched for a motive for shootings that terrified the community for hours.

Investigators were sorting out why Anthony McRae fired inside an academic building and the student union just before 8:30 p.m. Monday. An hourslong lockdown at the campus in East Lansing ended when he killed himself miles away while being confronted by police.

The shooting happened the day before the fifth anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 and is the latest in what has become a deadly new year in the U.S.

“We have to do something to stop the gun violence that’s ripping apart our communities,” President Joe Biden said in a speech Tuesday, mentioning Michigan State.

Meanwhile, a school district in Ewing Township, New Jersey, closed for the day after investigators said that McRae, who lived in the area years ago, had a note in his pocket indicating a threat to schools there. But it was determined there was no credible threat, local police said later in a statement shared by the superintendent.

The dead and injured in the gunfire at Berkey Hall and the MSU Union, a popular place to eat and study, were all Michigan State students. Five remained in critical condition at Sparrow Hospital, said Dr. Denny Martin, who fought back tears during a news conference Tuesday.

“We have absolutely no idea what the motive was,” said Chris Rozman, deputy chief of campus police, adding that McRae, of Lansing, was not a student or Michigan State employee.

“This is still fluid,” Rozman said. “There are still crime scenes that are being processed, and we still are in the process of putting together the pieces to try to understand what happened.”

The dead were all from the Detroit area. Two gradated from separate high schools in the Grosse Pointe district: Brian Fraser, president of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and Arielle Anderson. Alexandria Verner, a graduate of Clawson High School in another Detrot suburb, also died.

“If you knew her, you loved her and we will forever remember the lasting impact she has had on all of us,” Clawson Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger said in an email to families.

The shootings took place in an area of older, stately buildings on the northern edge of the Michigan State campus, one of the nation’s largest at 5,200 acres. Just across busy Grand River Avenue lies East Lansing’s downtown, teeming with restaurants, bars and shops.

“Our Spartan community is reeling today,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Michigan State graduate, said at the morning briefing.

Biden pledged his support during a phone call, she said.

“We mourn the loss of beautiful souls today and pray for those who are continuing to fight for their lives. … Another place that is supposed to be about community and togetherness is shattered by bullets and bloodshed,” Whitmer said.

Michigan State has about 50,000 students, including 19,000 who live on campus. As hundreds of officers scoured the campus, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, students hid where they could Monday night.

At 11 p.m., police were still searching for McRae when he turned up on school security cameras, and his image was quickly released to news media. An “alert citizen” saw the picture, recognized him in the Lansing area and contacted police within minutes, Rozman said.

“That was exactly what we were trying to achieve by releasing that picture. We had no idea where he was at that point,” the deputy chief said.

Officers confronted McRae about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from campus in an industrial area, where he killed himself, Rozman said.

In 2019, McRae was accused of illegally possessing a concealed weapon, according to the state Corrections Department, but pleaded guilty to having a loaded gun in a vehicle, a misdemeanor. He completed 18 months of probation.

A large police presence was in his Lansing neighborhood overnight. Suzanne Shook said she has lived a block away from McRae for about a year.

“We never spoke to him,” Shook said. “When he would be walking or riding his bike, he was always straightforward and wouldn’t look at anybody.”

Students, meanwhile, recalled the previous night’s terror. Dominik Molotky said he was learning about Cuban history around 8:15 p.m. when he and the other students heard a gunshot outside the classroom. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that a few seconds later, the gunman entered and fired three to four more rounds.

“I was ducking and covering, and the same with the rest of the students,” Molotky said.

Claire Papoulias, a sophomore, described on NBC’s “Today” how she and other students scrambled to escape a history class through a window after the gunman entered from a back door and began firing.

“As soon as I fell out of the window I kind of hit the ground a little. I just grabbed my backpack and my phone, and I remember I just ran for my life,” she said.

All classes, sports and other activities were canceled for 48 hours. Interim university President Teresa Woodruff said it would be a time “to think and grieve and come together.”

Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, most notably in California, where 11 people were killed as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. In 2022, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

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GREENWOOD, Ind. (AP) — Three people were fatally shot and two were injured Sunday evening at an Indiana mall after a man with a rifle opened fire in a food court and an armed civilian shot and killed him, police said.

The man entered the Greenwood Park Mall with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court, Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison said.

A 22-year-old from nearby Bartholomew County who was legally carrying a firearm at the mall shot and killed the gunman, Ison said at a news conference.

Four of those hit by gunfire were females and one was a male, Ison said. He didn’t immediately know the specific gender or age of those who were killed.

He said a 12-year-old girl was among the two injured, both of whom are in stable condition.

Police confiscated a suspicious backpack that was in a bathroom near the food court, Ison said.

Officers went to the mall at about 6 p.m. for reports of the shooting.

“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Ison said.

The mass shooting was just the latest to unnerve Americans in 2022. Schools, churches, grocery stores and a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, have all become killing grounds in recent months. Still, the reality of America’s staggering murder rate can often be seen more clearly in individual deaths that rarely make the news.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police and multiple other agencies are assisting in the investigation.

“We are sickened by yet another type of incident like this in our country,” Indianapolis Assistant Chief of Police Chris Bailey said.

There was no threat to the area Sunday night, authorities said.

Greenwood is a south suburb of Indianapolis with a population of about 60,000. Mayor Mark Myers asked for “prayers to the victims and our first responders.”

“This tragedy hits at the core of our community,” Myers said in a statement.

Authorities said they would provide more details Monday.

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But then, around 4:15 a.m. Monday, a masked shooter gunned down the 40-year-old clerk inside the convenience store. Authorities say it was one of five — and possibly as many as six — robberies committed by the same gunman at 7-Eleven stores across the region, senseless attacks that left two dead and three wounded.

The robberies occurred across a five-hour span July 11 — or 7/11, the day when the national 7-Eleven brand celebrates its anniversary — and prompted the parent company to urge Los Angeles-area employees to close their stores Monday and Tuesday nights for safety.

The tragedy left Hirsch’s father reeling on Tuesday. Jim Hirsch had long feared his son’s death would come from another heroin overdose. Still, he always had an open-door policy for “Matt” at his childhood home.

“I’d walk into his room at night and see needles,” Hirsch told The Associated Press. “Do I throw him out to die under a bridge? Or let him overdose in the house?”

But his son turned his life around more than a year ago, Jim Hirsch said, and sobered up as “he slowly straightened himself out.” He began working at the 7-Eleven in Brea about six months ago, juggling his job and his recovery.

“He hadn’t had time to enjoy a normal life,” his father said. “He goes through a struggle for goodness and it ends in a shooting.”

Investigators haven’t determined what led to Hirsch’s death in Brea, or what sparked the attacks in Ontario, Upland, Riverside, Santa Ana and La Habra.

“I think the only person to answer that would be the suspect,” said Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback.

Hirsch’s death occurred after authorities believe the gunman gravely wounded a customer in Riverside and then fatally shot Matthew Rule, 24, outside a Santa Ana store. After those three shootings, the suspect then shot two people at a store in La Habra before disappearing.

Armed robberies also occurred at stores in Ontario and Upland shortly before the shootings, but police haven’t determined whether the Upland one was carried out by the same suspect.

Authorities in Ontario, Brea and Upland shared images of a masked man wearing what appeared to be the same black sweatshirt with a hood over his head. The sweatshirt had white lettering with green leaves on the front.

Monday was 7-Eleven Inc.’s 95th anniversary and Railsback said the date of the attacks was no accident.

“There’s no way it can be a coincidence of it being 7-Eleven, July 11,” he said.

In a statement, the national company said: “Our hearts remain with the victims and their loved ones, and our focus continues to be on Franchisee, associate and customer safety.”

The first robbery happened around midnight Monday morning in Ontario, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.

Then, about 45 minutes later, an armed gunman stole a few items and $400 to $500 in cash from a store in the neighboring city of Upland.

About an hour after the Upland robbery and 25 miles (40 kilometers) away in Riverside, an armed gunman robbed the 7-Eleven clerk, then shot a customer, gravely wounding the victim, Railsback said.

Another shooting occurred around 3:20 a.m., about 24 miles (39 kilometers) away, in Santa Ana. There, officers found the 24-year-old Rule dead in the 7-Eleven parking lot. The victim did not work at the store and surveillance video shows the suspect dropping items — believed to be the victim’s belongings while fleeing, police said.

About 40 minutes later, Hirsch was fatally shot in Brea and less than an hour later, around 4:55 a.m., officers discovered two gunshot victims at a store in nearby La Habra. Those two victims are expected to survive.

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HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) — The gunman who attacked an Independence Day parade in suburban Chicago, killing at least seven people, legally bought two high-powered rifles and three other weapons despite authorities being called to his home twice since 2019 after he threatened suicide and violence, police said Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force told a news conference that the suspected shooter, who was arrested late Monday, used a high-powered rifle “similar to an AR-15” to spray more than 70 rounds from atop a commercial building into a crowd that had gathered for the parade in Highland Park, an affluent community of about 30,000 on the Lake Michigan shore.

Police said they were called to the suspect’s home in September 2019 after a family member called to say he was threatening “to kill everyone” in the home. Task force spokesman Christopher Covelli said police confiscated 16 knives, a dagger and a sword, but said there was no sign he had any guns at the time.

The suspect legally purchased the high-powered rifle in Illinois within the past year, Covelli said. In all, police said, he purchased five firearms, which were recovered by officers at his father’s home.

Police in 2019 also responded to a reported suicide attempt by the suspect, Covelli said.

The day after the shooting, authorities reported the death of a seventh person. More than three dozen other people were wounded in the attack, which Covelli said the suspect had planned for several weeks.

Investigators who have interrogated the suspect and reviewed his social media posts have not determined a motive for the attack or found any indication that he targeted victims by race, religion or other protected status, Covelli said.

Authorities have not filed criminal charges.

Earlier in the day, FBI agents peeked into trash cans and under picnic blankets as they searched for more evidence at the site where the assailant opened fire. The shots were initially mistaken for fireworks before hundreds of revelers fled in terror.

A day later, baby strollers, lawn chairs and other items left behind by panicked parade goers remained inside a wide police perimeter. Outside the police tape, some residents drove up to collect blankets and chairs they abandoned.

David Shapiro, 47, said the spray of gunfire quickly turned the parade into “chaos.”

“People didn’t know right away where the gunfire was coming from, whether the gunman was in front or behind you chasing you,” he said Tuesday as he retrieved a stroller and lawn chairs.

The shooting was just the latest to shatter the rituals of American life. Schools, churches, grocery stores and now community parades have all become killing grounds in recent months. This time, the bloodshed came as the nation tried to find cause to celebrate its founding and the bonds that still hold it together.

“It definitely hits a lot harder when it’s not only your hometown but it’s also right in front of you,” resident Ron Tuazon said as he and a friend returned to the parade route Monday evening to retrieve chairs, blankets and a child’s bike that his family abandoned when the shooting began.

“It’s commonplace now,” Tuazon said. “We don’t blink any more. Until laws change, it’s going to be more of the same.”

A police officer pulled over Robert E. Crimo III north of the shooting scene several hours after police released his photo and warned that he was likely armed and dangerous, Highland Park Police Chief Lou Jogmen said.

Law enforcement officials gave his age as 21 or 22.

After evading initial capture by dressing as a woman and blending into the fleeing crowd, Crimo drove to the Madison, Wisconsin, area, then returned to Illinois, Covelli said.

The shooting occurred at a spot on the parade route where many residents had staked out prime viewing points early in the day.

Among them was Nicolas Toledo, who was visiting his family in Illinois from Mexico. He was shot and died at the scene, his granddaughter, Xochil Toledo, told the Chicago Sun-Times. Also killed was Jacki Sundheim, a lifelong congregant and “beloved” staff member at nearby North Shore Congregation Israel, which announced her death on its website.

Toledo’s granddaughter told the Sun-Times that Toledo had spent most of his life in Morelos, Mexico. Xochil Toledo said she remembers looking over at her grandfather, who was in his late 70s, as a band passed them.

“He was so happy,” she said. “Happy to be living in the moment.”

Xochil Toledo said her father tried to shield her grandfather and was shot in the arm. Her boyfriend also was shot in the back and taken to a hospital.

Sundheim had spent decades on the staff at North Shore Congregation Israel, teaching at the congregation’s preschool and later coordinating events, “all of this with tireless dedication,” the congregation said in its statement announcing her death.

“Jacki’s work, kindness and warmth touched us all,” the statement said.

The Lake County coroner released the names of four other victims: 64-year-old Katherine Goldstein, 35-year-old Irina McCarthy, 37-year-old Kevin McCarthy and 88-year-old Stephen Straus.

Nine people, ranging from 14 to 70, remained hospitalized Tuesday, hospital officials said.

Since the start of the year, the U.S. has seen 15 shootings where four or more people were killed, including the one in Highland Park, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University mass killing database.

Scores of smaller-scale shootings in nearby Chicago also left eight people dead and 60 others wounded over the July 4 weekend.

In 2013, Highland Park officials approved a ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds. A local doctor and the Illinois State Rifle Association quickly challenged the liberal suburb’s stance. The legal fight ended at the U.S. Supreme Court’s doorstep in 2015 when justices declined to hear the case and let the suburb’s restrictions remain in place.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O’Neill said the gunman apparently fired from a rooftop where he was “very difficult to see.” He said the rifle was recovered at the scene. Police also found a ladder attached to the building.

Crimo, who goes by the name Bobby, was an aspiring rapper with the stage name Awake the Rapper, posting on social media dozens videos and songs, some ominous and violent.

In one animated video since taken down by YouTube, Crimo raps about armies “walking in darkness” as a drawing appears of a man pointing a rifle, a body on the ground and another figure with hands up in the distance.

Federal agents were reviewing Crimo’s online profiles, and a preliminary examination of his internet history indicated that he had researched mass killings and had downloaded multiple photos depicting violent acts, including a beheading, a law enforcement official said.

The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Crimo’s father, Bob, a longtime deli owner, sought the mayor’s office in 2019, calling himself “a person for the people.”

Shapiro, the Highland Park resident who fled the parade with his family, said his 2-year-old son woke up screaming later that night.

“He is too young to understand what happened. But he knows something bad happened,” Shapiro said. “That’s chilling.”

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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white man accused of killing 10 Black people in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on a state domestic terrorism and hate crime charge that would carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Payton Gendron is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on the new, 25-count indictment, which builds on a previous murder charge hastily prepared in the hours after the May 14 shooting.

The 18-year-old has now also been charged with the attempted murders of three people who were shot during the attack, but survived, and with using a weapon while committing a felony.

He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors had told a judge May 20 the grand jury had voted to indict Gendron but did not disclose charges, saying proceedings were ongoing.

Gendron’s attorney, Brian Parker, said he had not seen the indictment and could not comment, adding that prosecution and defense attorneys have been barred by a judge from discussing the case publicly.

The horrific nature of the crime and number of victims was likely to already guarantee a life sentence if Gendron is convicted. New York has no death penalty. But adding a state terrorism charge could carry additional emotional resonance and help authorities send a message about violent extremism.

The domestic terrorism charge — Domestic Acts of Terrorism Motivated by Hate in the First Degree — accuses Gendron of killing “because of the perceived race and/or color” of his victims.

“This man was motivated by hate against people he never met for no reason other than the color of their skin,” said Buffalo lawyer John Elmore, who represents the families of victims Katherine “Kat” Massey, 72, and Andre Mackniel, 53. Elmore said he hoped for a conviction on every count.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the domestic terrorism hate crime law in August 2019, in the wake of a mass shooting targeting Mexicans at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. The measure, dubbed the “Josef Neumann Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act” after an attack at a rabbi’s home in Munsey, New York, was signed into law on April 3, 2020, and took effect Nov. 1, 2020.

The law expanded on a previous domestic terrorism statute passed after the 9/11 terrorist attack that was largely envisioned as a way to go after international extremism.

Prosecutors said Gendron drove about three hours to Buffalo from his home in Conklin, New York, intending to kill as many Black people as possible. Shortly before the attack he posted documents that outlined his white supremacist views and revealed he had been planning the attack for months.

The gunman, carrying an AR-15-style rifle he had recently purchased, opened fire on Saturday afternoon shoppers at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo.

Murder charges were filed for each of the victims, who ranged in age from 32 to 86 and included eight customers, the store security guard and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries.

The shooting, followed 10 days later by a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers inside a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, has renewed a national debate about gun control.

Mackniel was in the store to buy a birthday cake for his 3-year-old. Massey was a community activist who had championed gun control and fought against racism, Elmore said.

“To have her life taken away by a white supremacist extremist at the hands of a weapon of mass destruction is extremely upsetting to me,” he said. He is part of a team of attorneys exploring potential legal action against the manufacturers of the weapon and body armor used by the gunman, as well as social media platforms.

The attack was livestreamed from a helmet-mounted camera.

“Somehow we’re going to find justice for the Massey family, for the Mackniel family and all those others that were affected by this tragedy,” Elmore said.

Federal authorities also are investigating the possibility of hate crime charges against Gendron, who apparently detailed his plans and his racist motivation in hundreds of pages of writings he posted online shortly before the shooting.

Amanda Drury, who lost her 32-year-old sister, Roberta Drury, said she is leaving it to the legal system to say what charges are appropriate in the case.

“I’m going to continue with my trust in the justice system,” she said.

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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 18 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said, in the latest gruesome moment for a country scarred by a string of massacres. The assailant was killed by law enforcement.

The death toll also included three adults, according to state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who said he had been briefed by state police. But it was not immediately clear whether that number included the attacker.

The massacre at Robb Elementary School in the heavily Latino town of Uvalde was the deadliest shooting at a U.S. grade school since a gunmen killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, almost a decade ago.

The attack came just 10 days after a deadly, racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that added to a yearslong series of mass killings at churches, schools and stores. And the prospects for any reform of the nation’s gun regulations seemed at least as dim as in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook deaths.

“My heart is broken today,” said Hal Harrell, the school district superintendent, announcing that all school activities were cancelled until further notice. “We’re a small community and we’re going to need you prayers to get through this.”

The gunman, who was wearing body armor and had hinted on social media of an upcoming attack, crashed his car outside the school and went inside armed, Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN.

He killed his grandmother before heading to the school with two military-style rifles he had purchased on his birthday, Gutierrez said.

“That was the first thing he did on his 18th birthday,” he said.

Officials did not immediately reveal a motive, but the governor identified the assailant as Salvador Ramos and said he was a resident of the community about 85 miles (135 kilometers) west of San Antonio.

A Border Patrol agent who was working nearby when the shooting began rushed into the school without waiting for backup and shot and killed the gunman, who was behind a barricade, according to a law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it.

The agent was wounded but able to walk out of the school, the law enforcement source said.

The school district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, said that the attacker acted alone.

It was not immediately clear how many people were wounded, but Arredondo said there were “several injuries.” Earlier, Uvalde Memorial Hospital said 13 children were taken there. Another hospital reported a 66-year-old woman was in critical condition.

Robb Elementary School has an enrollment of just under 600 students, and Arredondo said it serves students in the second, third and fourth grade. He did not provide ages of the children who were shot. This was the school’s last week of classes before summer break.

Heavily armed law enforcement officers swarmed to the school, with officers in tactical vests diverting traffic and FBI agents coming and going from the building.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting on Air Force One as he returned from a five-day trip to Asia. Biden was scheduled to deliver remarks Tuesday evening at the White House.

Uvalde, home to about 16,000 people, is about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from the border with Mexico. Robb Elementary is in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes.

The tragedy in Uvalde was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, and added to a grim tally of mass shootings in the state that has been among the deadliest in the U.S. over the past five years.

In 2018, a gunman fatally shot 10 people at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area. A year before that, a gunman at a Texas church killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, another gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack.

The shooting came days before the National Rifle Association annual convention was set to begin in Houston. Abbott and both of Texas’ U.S. senators were among elected Republican officials who were the scheduled speakers at a Friday leadership forum sponsored by the NRA’s lobbying arm.

In the years since Sandy Hook, the gun control debate in Congress has waxed and waned. Efforts by lawmakers to change U.S. gun policies in any significant way have consistently faced roadblocks from Republicans and the influence of outside groups such as the NRA.

A year after Sandy Hook, Sens. Joe Manchin a West Virginia Democrat, and Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, negotiated a bipartisan proposal to expand the nation’s background check system. But as the measure was close to being brought to the Senate floor for a vote, it became clear it would not get enough votes to clear a 60-vote filibuster hurdle.

Then-President Barack Obama, who had made gun control central to his administration’s goals after the Newtown shooting, called Congress’ failure to act “a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

Last year, the House passed two bills to expand background checks on firearms purchases. One bill would have closed a loophole for private and online sales. The other would have extended the background check review period. Both languished in the 50-50 Senate, where Democrats need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome objections from a filibuster.

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