Five people were wounded in a shooting involving multiple suspects at Virginia State University early Saturday, prompting a campus lockdown and police investigation just as students get ready for a new school year.
It happened near the university's Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Officers responded just before 1:30 a.m. and the lockdown was lifted at about 9 a.m., county police said.
The shooting happened as Virginia State's academic year begins. According to the university’s website, residence halls opened for students a week ago, and classes resume on Monday. Many students had just completed the university’s “New Trojans Experience” for incoming students.
Police and university officials have not identified any of the victims nor said if they are connected to the university.
The five were transported to hospitals, and one initially listed as having life-threatening injuries has been upgraded to critical condition, county police said. The others sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The university said in a statement that the shooting involves “multiple suspects.” The statement asked people to avoid the immediate area on Saturday morning.
“A significant law enforcement presence remains on campus as the investigation into this morning's shooting continues,” the university said after the lockdown was lifted.
The campus had a large law enforcement presence on Saturday morning. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Hanover County Sheriff's Office were assisting, county police said.
Virginia State University is a historically Black university located in Ettrick, Virginia, about 24 miles south of the state capital of Richmond. The public university has about 5,700 students and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for Black Americans. Most of its students are undergraduates.
The university has grown in recent years while attempting to improve safety and retain its historic charm, said Arthur Fridrich, the university's former director of distance education, who lives near the campus and visits regularly. A shooting like this just as students return for classes is heartbreaking for the community, he said.
“To start a new year with this event is very tragic. It casts a shadow in the minds of all students, and for some it will be difficult to rid their minds of this term,” Fridrich said. “For those that were shot, my heart bleeds. I hope that they all mend and somehow do not let this event define their lives.”
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
Police investigate the scene of a shooting on the campus of Virginia State University on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026 in Petersburg, Va. (WWBT via AP)
BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people Saturday, in the deadliest attacks since a truce between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on June 20.
Lebanon's Health Ministry and state news agency said an airstrike that targeted a home on the edge of the village of Ansar killed seven people, including three children, and wounded two. The second, on the village of Deir al-Zahrani, killed four and wounded 17.
Israel and the Lebanese government announced a “framework agreement” on June 26, laying out a plan for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. It envisions steps toward an eventual peace agreement between the two countries — which remain technically at war nearly 80 years after Israel’s establishment.
Hezbollah has refused direct talks and wasn’t party to the deal.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam criticized Israel's airstrikes on southern Lebanon, saying they intimidate “residents in their homes" and undermine efforts to stabilize the situation in the south.
“The seven martyrs of the Israeli airstrike on the town of Ansar are not military infrastructure and the children and women killed were not military targets,” Salam said in comments posted on X. He added that it is the job of the Lebanese state to deal with any military infrastructure in the country.
President Joseph Aoun said in comments released by his office that the strikes are “a clear message to the negotiation track and to the American efforts aimed at implementing this agreement.”
Intense Israeli airstrikes early Saturday also hit the strategic Ali Taher hill, which overlooks parts of the southern city of Nabatiyeh and main roads leading to it, NNA reported. Despite the truce, Israel’s military has continued near-daily attacks in the area north of the Litani River, with large areas to the south under Israeli military control.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas of Ali Taher and Ansar in response to an action against Israeli soldiers in the area.
The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah violated the ceasefire by attacking Israeli soldiers inside Lebanon, seriously wounding three of them. It said the Israeli military responded by striking the Hezbollah headquarters which ordered the attack, learning only later that Hezbollah “deliberately put civilians” in that military compound.
The Israeli military issued another statement later Saturday saying the strike on Ansar killed Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, whom it described as a battalion commander with Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force unit. The military said Haj Hassan’s family was with him and was harmed, but emphasized that the family was not targeted.
Hezbollah supporters posted photographs on social media of Haj Hassan, his wife, three sons and one daughter, and said they were all killed in the strike.
A Hezbollah official did not immediately respond when asked for comment on whether they carried out any attacks on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah called on the Lebanese state to find ways to halt “this aggression” rather than pursuing U.S.-sponsored direct talks with Israel, arguing that would be “free gifts for the enemy despite the crimes and aggression it is carrying out.”
“The American side is a partner of the Israeli enemy in its crimes and massacres,” Hezbollah added in the statement.
Earlier this month, two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion in southern Lebanon, the first Israeli deaths since the truce. Hezbollah has not commented on the blast.
Lebanon and Israel have held seven rounds of talks; the most recent took place in Rome earlier this month.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has refused to disarm and accuses the Lebanese government of making too many concessions without guaranteeing an Israeli withdrawal.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets across the border two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. More than 4,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since then, including hundreds of civilians. About 40 soldiers and three civilians — including a military contractor — have been killed on the Israeli side.
Associated Press writer Sam Mednick contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.
People and rescue workers gather on a destroyed house that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Zahrani village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers carry a plastic bag, containing the body of a person who was killed at a house that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Zahrani village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People check a destroyed home that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ansar village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man checks his damaged bedroom near the site where an Israeli airstrike hit and destroyed a house in Ansar village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man reacts on the rubble of a destroyed home that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ansar village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A rescue worker, left, searches for victims under the rubble of a home that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Ansar village, southern Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
