Michigan State University students and members of surrounding communities pay their respects for victims of the mass shooting on MSU’s campus at the Rock, which is painted to read “HOW MANY MORE?” on Feb. 14, 2023. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
Justin Bowman, a former Michigan State University student has taken legal action against the university and its leadership, arguing they failed to take action and implement policies that could have prevented the Feb. 13, 2023 mass shooting.
Two years ago, Thursday, a gunman shot several students at the MSU Union and Berkey Hall, killing three individuals and wounding five others.
According to the suit filed Wednesday, Bowman was attending class in room 114 of Berkey Hall, when the gunman entered and shot seven students, killing Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner. The suit said Bowman attempted to play dead as the gunman continued the shooting. It states that Bowman later held and comforted a classmate who had been fatally shot, trying to save her life.
The gunman killed one other student, Brian Fraser.
Bowman has requested $50 million in damages, with Attorney Nora Hanna arguing the mass shooting was “entirely preventable” and that each defendant had created and increased the dangers existing at the university.
“The individually named Defendants are each responsible through their actions for enacting policies and procedures that increased the risk to the staff and students, causing the students to be in direct harm, and acting in a manner that was so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results,” the suit reads.
“The students at Michigan State University, and [Bowman] in particular, would have been safer had the Defendants not taken the actions that they did. Their actions allowed a gunman unfettered access to the instructional buildings and classrooms on February 13, 2023,” it reads.
The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, names the University, alongside the board of trustees, former interim President Theresa Woodruff and former Vice President for Public Safety and Chief of Police Marlon Lynch, MSU Police and Public Safety, Deputy Director of the Management Services Bureau John Prush, the MSU Infrastructure Planning and Facilities and Dan Bollman, the vice president for Strategic Infrastructure Planning and Facilities.
The suit argues that MSU’s decision not to implement any security measures for its instructional buildings ahead of the mass shootings, as well the decision not to install classroom locks allowed the gunman unfettered access to the buildings and classrooms prior to the shooting.
MSU Spokesperson Amber McCann said the university does not comment on litigation.
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