By The Associated Press
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A University of Memphis football player was fatally shot on campus in a targeted attack and classes were canceled Monday as a precaution, officials said.
''We found him with a bullet wound to the body and the ambulance took him to the hospital where he was pronounced (dead),’' said Roger Prewitt, a Memphis Police inspector.
University police declined to release the name of the student, but the incident ''may have involved a current or former football player,’' said Bob Winn, associate athletic director at University of Memphis.
Taylor Bradford, 21, was taken to Regional Medical Center at 10:15 p.m. Sunday and pronounced dead, hospital spokeswoman Sandy Snell said.
Bradford, a 5-foot-11, 300-pound defensive lineman from Nashville, was a junior who transferred to Memphis after two seasons at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala.
University officials closed residence halls on campus for about a half-hour after the shooting before police learned that the shooting was likely personal, spokesman Curt Gunther said.
In an e-mail alert sent to faculty, staff and students at 3:40 a.m. Monday, officials wrote that ''the initial investigation indicates this was an act directed specifically toward the victim and was not a random act of violence.’'
The university decided to cancel classes Monday, although police believe the person or persons involved in the shooting left the campus immediately.
''We feel like the campus is safe, but we’d rather err on the safety than not,’' Gunther said.
The university had 20,562 students enrolled for last fall, according to its Web site.
The school was founded in 1912 as West Tennessee State Normal School and was renamed Memphis State College in 1941. It became Memphis State University in 1957, two years before it admitted its first black students. It was renamed the University of Memphis in 1994.