Police release name of suspect in Rose State shooting

Morrissette is accused of fatally shooting a 20-year-0ld student

By Jeff Harrison
Midwest City Beacon

Midwest City police identified the suspect involved in a fatal shooting Monday afternoon at Rose State College.

Brandon Morrissette, 30, was arrested by police after allegedly shooting a 20-year-old student with a pistol near the Humanities building. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

At 12:17 p.m., police were called to the campus about a possible shooting. Witnesses identified Morrissette as the shooter. The suspect put the gun in his backpack and surrendered to police.

The suspect’s wife said she was walking out of the building with the victim when they were confronted by Morrissette who began shooting at the victim. The suspect’s wife and the victim are students at Rose State.

Morrissette’s wife told police that her husband believed she was having an affair with the victim. She said that was not true and they were just friendly classmates. She said that she and her husband had been getting into a lot of fights recently.

Porter said they are still working to determine the cause of the shooting.

“You don’t know what is in a person’s mind,” he said. “He [Morrissette] didn’t want to speak to us. We’ll look deep into this because this is just the first part of it.”

Morrissette was taken into custody and brought to the Midwest City Jail for questioning but refused to speak without an attorney. He was later transported to the Oklahoma County Jail.

He is being held on complaints of first-degree murder and possession of firearms on school property.

The campus was put on lockdown for more than an hour. Officers swept the entire campus before the lockdown was lifted about 2 p.m.. Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Del City Police Department, Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department and ATF assisted in clearing the campus.

“When everyone is on lockdown and with all of the stuff going on it makes it very scary,” Porter said. “So, we did searches building by building.”

Rose State officials released a statement thanking police for their swift action.

“We want to thank the Midwest City Police Department and other first responders for their quick and professional response during today’s incident on campus,” the statement read.

All classes at Rose State College were canceled for the rest of the day as well as Tuesday.

“We understand that this event has been deeply distressing for our community, and we are currently working to coordinate counseling services for those in need,” the statement said. “We will be alerting our students, faculty and staff as soon as these services become available.”

Kevin McCormack, a student from Choctaw, told the Associated Press that he was meeting a friend on campus when he heard gunfire. He said they looked over and saw a man hitting the ground, next to another man holding a gun and a woman who was trying to calm him down.

“Almost immediately, we said, ‘Go, go, go!’ and took off,” McCormack said.

The shooting comes just weeks after Rose State hosted an active shooter training exercise with local first responders. Porter said that practice helped on Monday.

“Things got locked down real quick,” Porter said. “Students stayed in. We didn’t have a lot of people coming out and moving around. I just think they did a fantastic job listening to the school and everybody staying down and not panicking because we didn’t know what was going on.”

Porter expressed condolences to the victim’s family and was thankful it wasn’t worse.

“Praise the Lord that no one else was severely hurt or injured,” he said. “My heart goes out to the victim’s family. He’s 20 years old. It’s heart wrenching.”

Police have not identified the victim.