Police have arrested a suspect after two people were shot dead at Central Michigan University.

The US university said the shooting began on the fourth floor of Campbell Hall at around 8.30am local time.

The two people killed were not students or staff, police said.

There were no other injuries.

On Saturday police arrested 19-year-old suspect James Eric Davis Jr following an intensive day-long search that included more than 100 police officers, some heavily armed in camouflage uniforms.


Davis Jr was arrested without incident after an individual spotted him on a train passing through the north end of campus shortly after midnight.

CMU Police Lieutenant Larry Klaus said officers had contact with the suspect the previous evening, when he had been taken to hospital "due to what police believe might have been a drug-type incident, an overdose or bad reaction to drugs".

Image: Campbell Hall at Central Michigan University

The university identified the two dead as Davis' mother Diva Davis and father James Davis Sr, a part-time police officer in the Chicago suburb of Bellwood.

A spokesman for Davis's school district in Illinois said he had graduated high school in 2016.

Halie Byron, 20, who lives about 10 minutes' walk from Campbell Hall, described how she had locked herself in her house during the shooting.

She said: "It's scary thinking about how easy a shooter can come into a college campus anywhere - a classroom, a library."

Image: James Eric Davis Jr is suspected of shooting two people dead at Central Michigan University. Pic: Police

Parents hoping to collect their children for spring break were told to go to a local hotel instead.

Jordyn Hermani, editor of Central Michigan Life, said on Facebook Live on Friday afternoon: "The university is being evacuated building by building, except for the fourth floor of Campbell Hall, as it's a crime scene."

University president George Ross said: "This has been a tragic day...The hurting will go on for a while."

Image: The shooting took place in a residential hall at Central Michigan University. Pic: Grant Polmanteer

Central Michigan University has some 23,000 students in Mount Pleasant, about 70 miles north of Lansing, the state's capital.

The shooting comes two weeks after 17 people were shot dead at a Florida high school, sparking a renewed debate over gun violence in the US.