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Student Shot to Death at Mississippi State

STARKVILLE, Miss. (The Blaze/AP) -- A 21-year-old student was shot to death at a Mississippi State University residence hall late Saturday night, prompting campus-wide alerts as authorities searched for suspects who fled the scene.

University spokeswoman Maridith Geuder said police received a call about the shooting at Evans Hall around 10 p.m. Saturday. Victim John Sanderson was taken to a hospital where he subsequently died.

Three male suspects fled the building in a blue Crown Victoria. As of early Sunday, no arrests had been made and the campus remained under emergency conditions. Police do not believe the suspects are students, Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger reported.

According to the newspaper, Sanderson was found shot multiple times outside a dorm room at Evans Hall, though officials believe he was shot inside the dorm.

"They worked on him for quite some time," Bill Kibler, vice president of student affairs, told the Clarion-Ledger

Shortly after the shooting, the university began sending a series of text message alerts to students. Geuder said a team of university officials and police was meeting early Sunday. The team is automatically convened in emergencies under a school policy.

The four-story Evans Hall holds about 300 male students and is located on the north side of campus. The campus of about 20,000 students is located in a rural area in the northeastern part of the state, about 125 miles northeast of Jackson.

The school's website says the campus is located in a low-crime area, and that emergencies are rare.

Additional information was expected to be released at 10 a.m. Sunday.

This post has been updated since it was first published.

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