1 shot at North Carolina A&T State University

AP

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Shots fired on homecoming weekend at North Carolina A&T State University prompted a brief campus lockdown after a 21-year-old man was wounded by a bullet fired from a "considerable distance," authorities said.

Greensboro Police Department said in overnight statements that "one or more" suspects fired shots in a grassy area near McCain Hall on campus about 10 p.m. Saturday and one of the rounds struck 21-year-old Devine Eatmon. Authorities said they were seeking four suspects believed armed with handguns.

Eatmon appeared to have serious, but non-life-threatening wounds when he was found on a sidewalk and taken by paramedics to a hospital, according to the police statement released by Police Lieut. J.L. Raines.

The statement didn't elaborate on just how far Eatmon was from where the round was fired that hit him, or whether anyone had been deliberately targeted.

Police issued a subsequent statement early Sunday saying they had given an incorrect spelling of Eatmon's first and last names hours earlier and said the error was due to limited information available to them at the time.

Greensboro and campus police initially responded to the site and a lockdown was ordered. The university's website announced about an hour later that the lockdown had been lifted, but had encouraged students "for increased safety" to stay indoors after it was over.

The university tweeted on its website that campus police subsequently had gone on "visible" and "high alert."

Taylor Brunner was quoted by The News-Record newspaper as saying she heard several shots.

"The shooting started. I turned around and a lot of people were running," said Brunner, described as a freshman university student by the paper.

Samantha Hargrove, a university spokeswoman, told the paper that Eatmon was taken to Moses Cone Hospital.

A hospital dispatcher, contacted by the Associated Press, said it had no information to release. Hargrove didn't immediately return e-mail and telephone messages seeking comment.

The university's website said a week of events for students and alumni led up to a homecoming parade, football game and homecoming concert earlier Saturday.

Traffic was rerouted in the immediate area after the shooting, police said. News photographs later showed law enforcement officers standing about a site cordoned off by yellow tape.