By Joseph Pisani and Ginger Adams Otis

At least six people were hurt after a shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee, a hospital official said.

The university canceled classes for the day and ordered students to shelter in place. Alerts sent to students said a shooter was near the university's student union, where students gather to eat, grab coffee or shop at the bookstore.

A spokeswoman for Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said one person was in critical condition and five were in serious condition.

Nicolas Liberoni, a sophomore from Sarasota studying economics and international affairs, said he was in a classroom in a building near the student union when he heard police sirens. He checked his phone and saw text alerts about an active shooter at the school.

"We all got up and started barricading the door," he said. "We were very calm." Once the barricade was in place, he texted his parents.

"I said that I love them and that I'm safe but there's a shooter on campus," Liberoni said. Then he checked social media for the locations of his other friends. "I was just hoping nobody was hurt," he said.

Police arrived at the classroom door within minutes, he said, and reassured the roughly 15 students inside that they were safe.

"They kept checking back on us, and we kept giving them thumbs-up to let them know we were still OK," he said. Police eventually evacuated them as a group, with their hands in the air.

"I was thinking that you see this on the news, the video of kids walking out of a school with their hands up," Liberoni said. "It was really surreal. Overwhelming."

Parts of the campus reopened around 3 p.m., after law enforcement secured the area, the university said in an alert. Students were asked to avoid some buildings around the student union that were still being treated as an active crime scene.

The school canceled all its home athletics events through Sunday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is at the university, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.

Write to Joseph Pisani at joseph.pisani@wsj.com and Ginger Adams Otis at Ginger.AdamsOtis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 17, 2025 16:35 ET (20:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.