CLEVELAND, Miss.—Lawson King, a sculpting major at Delta State University, is in his 10:00 a.m. ceramics class, goofing off with friends. It’s Monday. Sept. 14, 2015, and the talented young artist is in his first year in the art program. Unbeknownst to him, the sight and sound of police cars flooding the campus will soon interrupt the class.
Down the street is Jobe Hall, the building that houses history and social studies. On the second floor, Chuck Westmoreland, a history professor, is 10 minutes into teaching a group of around 35 students.
The auditorium-style classroom is filled with 50 seats and three rows of long tables that are bolted to the floor. There are two small closets on each side of the back of the classroom and a computer on a black rolling cart that sits about four feet from the entrance. The wooden door is closed with a lock system that can only be secured from the outside.
Bang. Bang.
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The class is quiet. Westmoreland stops in the middle of his lecture. He walks outside in the hall to investigate the noise. There is no scuffle. No altercation. Nothing. Simply silence. Returning to the classroom, he asks the students, “Did y’all hear that?”
“We did,” they respond.
Unsure of where the metallic sound came from, the professor resumes his lecture. About three minutes later, campus police officers rush into the hallways with their guns drawn, demanding everyone get down.
There’s an active shooter in the building.
Frantically, Westmoreland and the students implement active shooter protocols that the professors learned beforehand in training. Students are stuffed into the closets in the back of the classroom. Others lay on the floor.
Professor Ethan Schmidt was killed on Delta State University campus on Sept. 14, 2015. Photo courtesy Delta State University ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?fit=780%2C519&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=780%2C519&ssl=1″ alt=”A man wearing glasses standing outside” class=”wp-image-337926″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=1024%2C682&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Dr.-Ethan-Schmidt_courtesy-Delta-State-University.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1 780w,
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