MT. PLEASANT, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – The campus at Central Michigan University and the neighboring Mt. Pleasant community can wake up on Saturday morning with the assurance of safety after the suspect in a fatal double shooting at a campus residence hall is in custody.
More than a hundred officers from various jurisdictions searched for about 15 hours before spotting 19-year-old James Eric Davis Jr. on a train in the north end of city and arrested him witout incident. He allegedly killed his parents, James Davis Sr. and Diva Davis of Bellwood, Illnois, who had come to Campbell Hall around 9 AM on Friday, apparently to pick him up and return to their Chicagoland area home for Spring Break, which begins on Monday. It was reported that Davis had been released from a local hospital an hour earlier, and that he had used the gun that his father, a part-time police officer, had carried in the commission of the crime.
The CMU campus, along with all schools in Isabella County and municipal buildings in Mt. Pleasant, went into lockdown mode once the shooting occurred. Campus police went building-by-building to escort students and staff safely out while the manhunt continued. Parents and family members who came to pick up their students for Spring Break were directed to an off-campus hotel, where university staff were on hand to facilitate the situation.
All campus activities, including a scheduled men’s basketball game between the Chippewas and visiting Western Michigan, had been cancelled before the arrest. The game was moved to Northwood University in Midland under a closed-door, no general public admittance for Saturday morning as a safety precaution because the suspect was still at large; it was not immediately announced whether that arrangement would still be in place now that Davis is in custody.
