Scores of local and federal law enforcement agents are scouring a Mississippi college campus after a history professor was shot to death in his office Monday.
Delta State University history professor Ethan Schmidt was shot in the head in his office, Bolivar County Deputy Coroner Murray Roark said. The shooter remains at large, the coroner said.
Investigators say another instructor at the school in Cleveland, Mississippi, is a “person of interest” in the case, and police in a town 300 miles away described him as a suspect in another homicide there.
Authorities are searching for Shannon Lamb, Cleveland Police Chief Charles Bingham said. He described Lamb as an employee at the university and person of interest, but Bingham did not detail why investigators are calling him a person of interest or what his connection could be to Schmidt.
#DeltaState: Police have released this picture of suspect Shannon Lamb. pic.twitter.com/eHjiTUBl8t
— WREG News Channel 3 (@3onyourside) September 14, 2015
“At this time we don’t think he’s on campus,” Bingham said, “but we’re not taking anything lightly.”
Friends tell Lamb on his Facebook page to turn himself into police.
The university, which is about 115 miles south of Memphis, remained on lockdown hours after the shooting. Night classes have also been canceled, said Michelle Roberts, vice president of university relations.
A biography of Lamb posted on the school’s website says he received his Ph.D. from Delta State in 2014, and has taught geography and social sciences education courses there.