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.