LSU students slain; campus stays open

BATON ROUGE, La. – Police searched for suspects Friday in the shooting deaths of two Louisiana State University students, and unlike other schools in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, the school decided against locking down the campus.

Police patrols were increased on the 28,000-student campus, and students were urged to be cautious as they wrapped up final exams and headed home for the holiday break. But LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe said police chose not to blockade the campus or reschedule the tests after determining the two doctoral candidates from India were slain in an isolated home invasion.

The victims were found late Thursday after being shot in the head inside an apartment complex for married and graduate students. One was bound with a computer cable. The killings were the first on the campus in more than a decade.

The suspects remain at large.

The decision to keep the campus open – and let traffic and people move freely – was in sharp contrast to the responses at other colleges to reports of gunfire after the Virginia Tech shootings in April.

“There was no evidence, nothing to suggest that there was a pattern here that would rapidly escalate. And as a consequence of that, a determination was made that we would not lock down the campus,” O’Keefe said.

This fall, the University of Memphis canceled classes the day after football player Taylor Bradford was shot because authorities were uncertain at the time whether it was a random attack. After two students were shot in September at Delaware State University, administrators quickly closed down the campus, citing the Virginia Tech shootings.

With exams ending, few students were at LSU on Friday.