Six people — including two juveniles — were shot early Sunday morning in a residential neighborhood in Normal just south of the Illinois State University campus, authorities said. It's one of the few mass shootings in recent Bloomington-Normal history.
Police responded around 2:40 a.m. to the 700 block of Franklin Avenue, an area just south of the railroad tracks with a mix of apartments and homes located between ISU and the Carle BroMenn Medical Center complex.
Officers found multiple people outside with gunshot wounds, Normal Police said. They were taken to the hospital. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening.
The victims include two juvenile males, two adult males, and two adult females, police said. Illinois State University Police said in a statement that two of the people injured are ISU students.
Normal Police spokesperson Brad Park said the shooting happened in the parking lot of an apartment building where a large party had gathered.
Based on the preliminary investigation, this incident appears to be isolated, police said. No arrests have been made as of 6 p.m. Sunday. Park said no suspects have been identified.
ISU did not send out an Emergency Alert to the campus community, as it has done for some other recent off-campus shootings, including one Feb. 14 that left a 16-year-old injured, a shots-fired report on Cherry Street in 2023, and another shots-fired report on Main Street in 2022.
The decision not to send an alert has drawn some criticism, including from Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who has a personal connection to one of the victims.
A university spokesperson said Normal Police are handling the investigation since the incident happened off-campus, but did not indicate why no alert was sent.
ISU Police Chief Aaron Woodruff said campus notifications are sent on a case-by-case basis "based on the totality of the circumstances."
"There have been numerous similar incidents off campus where we did not send an alert but issued a crime advisory or community update so this is not an outlier," he said in an email.
Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli said Sunday afternoon he's unable to add more about the investigation based on this being a "juvenile report," but he did not elaborate.
"I can say we have zero tolerance for violence in Normal, and we are utilizing all of our resources to identify and bring the responsible suspect(s) to justice," he said.
Sunday’s incident is only the latest episode of gun violence on and around the ISU campus. One person was shot last April outside an event at ISU’s Bone Student Center. Another shooting happened Sept. 29, 2024, near the Bone during ISU’s homecoming weekend. One person was killed and another injured in that incident.
The shooting happened about one mile north of the Illinois Wesleyan University campus. University spokesperson Ann Aubry said it appears no one from IWU was involved in the incident, and noted students have been on spring break this past week.
"Our campus safety officers received no notification from law enforcement agencies involved, and no safety alerts were issued," Aubry said in an email.
At the scene
Normal Police cordoned off the entire 700 block of Franklin Avenue with crime scene tape as an Illinois State Police investigator collected evidence from the scene. Blood spatter was visible on the sidewalk and on other debris around midday Sunday.
Grant Jacobs, a senior exercise science major at ISU, lives in an apartment in the 700 block of Franklin. He said he was awakened by the commotion outside and helped make sure no one in the apartment went outside.
"I definitely think it's pretty scary that it happened so close," Jacobs said, adding he's grateful that the injuries were not life-threatening. "Usually it's not bad. Usually there are people over there that party and what not, but I guess [last night] someone was being more stupid than usual."
Kenneth Swanberg, who lives on Hovey Avenue one block away, said he was awakened by a large party early in the morning and heard a series of gunshots just as he was about to call police. Swanberg said he and other neighbors have tried to proactively address large parties that are fairly common in that area, though he described the neighborhood as generally safe.
"We make inroads, then you get a new semester in the fall of the year and you get a whole new crop of students. Until you can get to the point where a place gets a reputation that if you host a party there and the police will show up, then people know not to host parties," he said.
Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to contact Detective Kyle McComber at 309-433-3415 or kmccomber@normalil.gov.
Mass shootings
While gun violence is a regular occurrence in Bloomington-Normal, mass shootings like Sunday's are not.
There is no single definition for what constitutes a "mass shooting," although Sunday's incident would meet the definition used by many credible organizations.
Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group that uses data from the Gun Violence Archive, defines it as "any incident in which four or more people are shot and wounded or killed, excluding the shooter." The Gun Violence Archive defines it as "four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter." The Rockefeller Institute of Government, which tracks mass shootings, defines them as "is an incident of targeted violence carried out by one or more shooters at one or more public or populated locations. Multiple victims (both injuries and fatalities) are associated with the attack, and both the victims and location(s) are chosen either at random or for their symbolic value."
In a 2018 incident on Riley Drive in Bloomington, three men were shot and killed and a toddler was critically injured in an apartment building. In 2021, three people were killed (including the gunman) and three others seriously injured in shootings at a north Normal mobile home park.
This story will be updated.
