A Florida State University alumnus and attorney who shot three people at the school’s library early Thursday was born in Dayton and has family in the Dayton area.
Officers fatally shot Myron May, 31, during an exchange outside the library about 12:30 a.m.
May reloaded at least once and tried to enter the library, where about 450 students were studying for midterm exams, but he was blocked by lobby security barriers that permit only students and staff inside, Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo said.
May believed the government was targeting him for persecution, detailing his thoughts in a journal and in videos detectives obtained, authorities said.
May’s mother Nadine May owns a home on Castano Drive, a background search revealed. A reporter visited the address on Thursday, but no one answered the door. Attempts to reach May’s father, who was listed as having a Cleveland address, were unsuccessful. The number associated with the address was disconnected.
The background search also revealed May’s association with an address on Malvern Avenue. A woman who answered the door at that address told the reporter that her relative knew Myron May and that he might have grown up at her address.
It is unclear how long May lived in the Dayton area. Social media postings suggest that he may have graduated from Wewahitchka High School in Florida in 2001.
“Based on our initial review of the documents and his videos and his postings, it’s clear that Mr. May’s sense of being and place in our community was not what most people would refer to as a normal,” Tallahassee Chief DeLeo said. “He had a sense of crisis and he was searching for something.”
The shooting sent students scrambling for cover in the book aisles and barricading themselves in with desks amid screams from classmates.
“I ran for my life,” said Allison Kope, a freshman from Cocoa Beach, who was on the library’s first floor. “I ran right out the backdoor. My laptop and everything is still in there. It was shock. It was just instinct. You don’t think about anything else, you just go.”
One person is in critical condition and one is in good condition at a local hospital, while the third was released.
May’s Facebook page shows he posted mostly Bible verses and links to conspiracy theories about the government reading people’s minds.
Records show May was licensed to practice law in Texas and New Mexico.
According to a Las Cruces, New Mexico, police report last month, May was a subject of a harassment complaint after a former girlfriend called to report he came to her home uninvited and claimed police were bugging his house and car. Danielle Nixon told police May recently developed “a severe mental disorder.”
“Myron began to ramble and handed her a piece to a car and asked her to keep it because this was a camera that police had put in his vehicle,” the report said.
The report also said May recently quit his job and was on medication.
No charges were filed.
David Taunton, a retired judge living in Wewahitchka, said he has known May since he was 13 and was shocked to hear that May was identified as the shooter.
“I was just devastated for Myron personally because this is not the Myron that we have been acquainted with since he was 13 years old,” Taunton said.
As a child, May moved from what Taunton described as a dysfunctional family in Ohio to Florida to live with his grandmother. May became friends with Taunton’s children, who were on May’s cross country team.
May earned a full-ride scholarship while at FSU, according to Taunton. He went to attended law school after graduating FSU and then practiced law in Texas and New Mexico before moving back to Florida.
“He told me that he wanted to come home, wanted to study for the Florida bar and open up a local practice,” Taunton said.
So Taunton, who also operates a children’s home, allowed May to stay in his guest cottage. To help May get back on his feet financially, Taunton and his wife, Abigail, paid May to do some personal work for them. The Tauntons also provided May with an office so that he could work and study for the bar exam.
“He was just a happy-go-lucky, all-American type kid. Very, very bright,” Taunton said. “Very smart. Very purpose-oriented.”
Taunton also said that he and May had talked often, but May never said anything that would indicate that he was capable of doing something like what happened at the university’s library.
The shooting prompted a campus alert that urged students to take shelter and stay away from doors and windows.
Police responded to a report of a gunman within a minute, and two minutes after the call, officers shot May, according to university police Chief David Perry. DeLeo said more than 30 rounds combined were fired by May and the officers.
Sarah Evans, a senior from Miami, said she was inside the library and heard a male student say he had been shot. When she looked at him, he was on the ground with blood spreading on his pants leg.
Tallahassee and Florida State police confronted May just outside the library in the middle of campus and ordered him to drop his handgun, but he fired a shot at them and they unleashed a volley of shots, Tallahassee police spokesman Dave Northway said.
Hours after the shooting, detectives could be seen inspecting the body of May, who was lying face down at the top of a ramp just outside the library. A baseball cap lay nearby.
FSU canceled classes Thursday but said they would resume Friday. The library was also to reopen Friday.
Florida State President John Thrasher was in New York City at the time of the shooting but has returned to campus.
“We’re going to get back to normal tomorrow,” Thrasher said. “We’re moving ahead. We’re continuing to pray for the victims and pray for Florida State University, but we’re going to get through this with the great family we have.”
Gov. Rick Scott had been in South Florida for a meeting with other Republican governors. He returned to Tallahassee where he met with Thrasher.
“The police investigation will answer many of the questions we are asking today, but just like any tragedy the ultimate question of why, we’ll never have an answer that satisfies those who loved ones have been injured,” Scott said.
UPDATE @ 4:34 p.m.: Sam Staley, managing director of a social sciences center at Florida State University and former Bellbrook resident, said the university is still processing what in the overnight shooting on campus that left the shooter dead and three students wounded.
“We’re all processing it,” Staley told News Center 7’s Drew Simon on Thursday. “It’s all happened very quickly.”
Police from FSU and the city of Tallahassee shot and killed Myron May, a 2005 FSU graduate believed to have ties to the Dayton area, who had shot three students in Strozer Library.
One of the students was reported to be in critical condition and another was said to be in stable condition at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. The third victim, grazed by a bullet, was treated at the scene and released, according to national media reports.
Staley said he lived most of his life in Bellbrook before moving to Florida when he accepted a managing director’s position at FSU.
Staley said he wasn’t on campus when the shots were fired in the library, but said one of the victims used to work in the social science and public policy department at the DeVoe L. Moore Center, the department Staley directs.
“I personally am concerned about him and the other students as well,” Staley said, “so there is definitely a personal and professional connection.”
Staley said, “we can’t lose sight of the fact this is a real tragedy and this is going to affect every person on campus and everyone, every person connected to this university for years to come.”
FIRST REPORT
News Center 7 is looking into reports that a gunman who allegedly shot three people at Florida State University is from the Dayton area.
Myron May was fatally shot early Thursday after reportedly shooting three people at the Florida State library, according to the Associated Press.
May also says he’s from Dayton on his Facebook page, and he has several relatives in the area, including his mother. Our reporters are working to get in touch with as many of them as possible to bring you the latest on this developing story.
This story will be updated as additional information becomes available.
