Michigan State gunman had note indicating he ‘felt slighted,’ police say

Michigan State students embrace at the Rock, a popular college landmark where a makeshift memorial continues to grow after the slayings of three students. Police have not established a motive in Monday’s attack, but a note found on Anthony McRae, whom authorities identified as the gunman, contained claims that he led a group of killers; included threats against local businesses, a church and a New Jersey school district; and indicated that “he felt he was slighted in some way by people or businesses,” Christopher Rozman, deputy chief of the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety, said during a news conference Thursday. “That was the note that indicated where he was going to visit and also kind of gave an indication of … a motive, but nothing that we can actually confirm just yet,” Michigan State Police Lt. Rene Gonzalez said. The note also referenced a church and a school district in Ewing, N.J. Police did not comment on the church or why the shooter made threats against the school district, except to say he did have “some connections to New Jersey, but that was years ago.” A surveillance image of McRae distributed on local news stations and social media was instrumental in helping law enforcement locate the gunman, but questions remain about the campus’ security system and why it took three hours to release the photograph. The shooting at Michigan State occurred nearly five years to the day after a massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead — an event that galvanized a wave of activism, led by the survivors, to enact tighter gun laws across the country as they vowed “never again.” It also occurred 81 miles from the November 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Oxford, Mich., in which four people were killed and several others were critically wounded.