JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The president of Edward Waters University believes the school was a target of the soon-to-be mass shooter and credits the security guard who first encountered the shooter on campus as a hero for preventing potential violence towards students.
Students on campus Monday say there was a noticeable increase in security.
Janiys McNeil, was on campus at basketball practice Saturday afternoon when he says the team was put on lockdown.
“In my head I’m like I’m inside so I think I’m good but at the same time I’m like this man could really just do anything, he could have killed us first before he went to dollar general," Janiys Mcneil, a first year EWU student, said.
Moments before McNeil arrived too practice, security personal Lt. Antonio Bailey was flagged down by students for a suspicious person wearing gloves and putting on a tactical vest in a parking lot behind the library.
That person was Ryan Palmeter.
Lt Bailey says he approached Palmeter’s car on foot before he sped off.
“It’s just, for you to see me approaching and for you to leave that fast something’s not right," Lt. Antonio Bailey, a protective enterprises public safety security personnel, said.
Bailey says he drove after Palmeter, getting his license plate information before Palmeter's car left campus. That’s when Bailey flagged down a Jacksonville Sheriff's officer at the JSO substation on campus.
According to JSO, within 2 minutes of Palmeter leaving EWU, he had arrived at the dollar general down the street and shot his first victim.
University president Dr. Zachary Faison believes EWU was the shooter's original target and he calls Lt. Bailey a hero for responding so quick.
But Bailey gives all the credits to the students.
"It was the act of the students, I’m no hero, this is a daily activity that we do to protect our students," Lt Bailey said.
Governor DeSantis announced $1 million to EWU for campus security. The University president says leaders with the state’s Department of Law Enforcement were on campus today doing a risk assessment to see how that money would be used.