The Lafayette Police Department responded to shots being fired during a fight involving a student from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5. 

The incident took place in a parking lot of a small apartment complex on the 600 block of Tulane Avenue near the university.

 According to Sr. Cpl. Matthew Benoit, three males were fighting and one pulled out a firearm and shot the student. The student ended up at Huger Hall seeking aid. 

“So it was a fight involving three individuals. During that fight, one of the individuals pulled out a firearm and fired a shot, which shot the UL student,” Benoit said. “So I think the UL student, to my knowledge, after the crowd had kind of scattered after that point, he actually proceeded to one of the dorms nearby to try to get help.”

The UL Lafayette student was in critical condition when he arrived at the hospital, but after surgery, he was in a more stable state. 

“He is recovering at home with family members, and they have given us permission to report that he is doing well and is looking forward to returning to campus soon,” President Joseph Savoie wrote in an email announcement on Wednesday, Oct. 12. 

This is an ongoing investigation, and officers are in the process of identifying the others involved in the incident and the one who shot the student. 

Several students were on campus at the time of the incident and saw some of the sequence of events occur that day. 

A UL Lafayette student who was in Huger Hall at that time, who asked to remain anonymous, shared their experience seeing everything transpire. 

“EMS arrived and when we went to the balcony on the second floor, we could see a man loaded onto a stretcher in the Huger lobby,” the student wrote in a statement to The Vermilion. “I was shocked and briefly paralyzed in fear. He was bleeding—he was shot in the chest. They temporarily laid him in some chairs in the lobby (that are now taken away).”

Another student was in the Edith Garland Dupré Library at the time and expressed their concerns during the time. 

“After I saw what happened, I kinda freaked out because the library isn’t right where it happened but it wasn’t far either,” UL Lafayette visual arts major Madelyn Fontenot said. “I started thinking it might be a good idea to leave campus but then I got scared that going outside would be risky in case someone was running around with a gun, so I stayed out and sat on the floor between the shelves and worked on homework for a while until I figured it was more under control, and then I moved to Fletcher hall to be further away from the incident to continue my homework. It was frightening to sit there and come up with a plan in case something happened to where the shooter(s) was loose on campus in my head.”