Shooting near Florida A&M campus in Tallahassee injures 12, six of them minors

What happened

Gunfire broke out on Saturday evening, 24 October 2026, near Bragg Memorial Stadium on Perry Street in Tallahassee, Florida, close to the campus of Florida A&M University. The Tallahassee Police Department said the shots came shortly before 8 pm, a few hours after a homecoming football game in which the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions beat the Florida A&M Rattlers 31-28. Police have not said whether the shooting was linked to the game. Eleven people were struck by gunfire, and a twelfth person was hurt while trying to get away from the scene. The grandmother of one of the victims was among those injured while fleeing.

Victims and their condition

Police counted six adults and six minors among the people hurt. At a late-Saturday news conference, Tallahassee police chief Lawrence Revell said one victim was in critical condition, three had serious injuries and eight were stable. An earlier police update had put the number in serious condition at at least three, with nine stable. Revell also said one of the victims is a student at Florida A&M. The New York Post reported that the youngest victim is 11 years old, but police did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on that report.

Investigation and what police know

Police said first estimates suggest the incident began with an argument between two or three people before the shots were fired. Officers gave no further details about that dispute. The Violent Crimes Unit is leading the case, and detectives, supervisors and crime scene staff were working the scene late on Saturday. Revell said investigators were trying to establish exactly what happened and identify those responsible. No details about a motive or the people who opened fire have been released. Revell described the presence of children among the victims as shocking. Videos posted to Facebook from the scene show officers carrying a victim through a parking lot on a cloth stretcher and giving first aid by flashlight while voices can be heard nearby. A student who was at the stadium told WCTV that people began running after the gunshots, and that he was trampled before he got up and saw a person lying on the ground.

University and city reaction

Florida A&M said in a statement late on Saturday that it was aware of an incident on Perry Street near campus on the evening of 24 October. It said its facilities remain safe, expressed sympathy for the injured and urged people to avoid the area so police could do their work. The university added that it had no indication that members of its community were involved. Florida State University sent an emergency message to its students, and its main campus is about 2 kilometres from Florida A&M. Tallahassee mayor John Dailey described the shooting as a tragedy in a post on X and said the Florida A&M family was not alone. A police spokeswoman told the Tallahassee Democrat that there were certainly victims while she was heading to the scene, before the number of people hurt was known.