Stabbing Incident in Louisiana Tech University Results in 4 Injured

In a shock­ing turn of events at Louisiana Tech Uni­ver­si­ty, a stab­bing inci­dent took place at the Lam­bright Sports and Well­ness Cen­ter, result­ing in four indi­vid­u­als being injured. 

The inci­dent occurred as the vic­tims were leav­ing the build­ing, and the sus­pect, iden­ti­fied as Jaco­by John­son, a Louisiana Tech stu­dent, quick­ly fled towards the main cam­pus. How­ev­er, thanks to the swift response of cam­pus police, the sus­pect was appre­hend­ed with­out fur­ther incident.

The author­i­ties believe that this act of vio­lence was entire­ly ran­dom, leav­ing the cam­pus com­mu­ni­ty in shock and dis­be­lief. Jaco­by John­son, the sus­pect, is cur­rent­ly receiv­ing med­ical treat­ment at North­ern Louisiana Med­ical Cen­ter for injuries sus­tained dur­ing the ini­tial alter­ca­tion. The Rus­ton Police Depart­ment and the Lin­coln Parish Sher­if­f’s Office also pro­vid­ed assis­tance in con­trol­ling the scene and col­lect­ing evidence.

Out of the four vic­tims, two were trans­port­ed to a local hos­pi­tal, one was air­lift­ed to Shreve­port, and the remain­ing vic­tim declined treat­ment. As of the lat­est update at 11:40 a.m., one vic­tim is in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at NLMC, while the oth­er two vic­tims remain in seri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion. Notably, the vic­tim who was air­lift­ed is a grad­u­ate stu­dent, while the oth­er three vic­tims are non-students.

To ensure the safe­ty of the cam­pus com­mu­ni­ty, the Lam­bright Cen­ter has been tem­porar­i­ly closed and is sched­uled to reopen at 1 p.m. Thank­ful­ly, all oth­er cam­pus oper­a­tions are func­tion­ing nor­mal­ly. The inves­ti­ga­tion into the inci­dent is cur­rent­ly ongo­ing, and the uni­ver­si­ty has assured the pub­lic that fur­ther updates will be pro­vid­ed lat­er in the afternoon.

In light of this dis­tress­ing event, Coun­sel­ing Ser­vices at Louisiana Tech is offer­ing sup­port to stu­dents in both indi­vid­ual and group set­tings, com­plete­ly free of charge. Stu­dents can sched­ule appoint­ments by vis­it­ing Kee­ny Hall 310, call­ing 318.257.2488, or access­ing the website.

Addi­tion­al­ly, a spe­cial group ses­sion will com­mence today at 3:00 p.m. and will con­tin­ue through­out the week, pro­vid­ing a safe space for stu­dents to process their emo­tions fol­low­ing this unex­pect­ed and alarm­ing incident.