Brooks suspect arrested in third case

REVEILLE STAFF REPORT

A man charged with rape in the case of LSU student Madison Brooks, who was charged shortly after with the rape of a minor, is now facing charges in a third rape case, according to arrest documents reviewed by The Advocate.

Kaivon Washington, 18, and an unnamed 17-year-old were charged with the third-degree rape of Brooks in January. Washington was charged shortly after with the first-degree rape of a 12-year-old girl in Livingston Parish in 2020, when he was 16.

Now, he’s facing charges in a third case that draws parallels with the Brooks case.

The arrest warrant drawn Tuesday alleges Washington and another man met the victim in the parking lot of Reggie’s bar in 2022, The Advocate reported. The woman asked to go to the home of the other man, Karson Jones, 18, because she was too intoxicated to drive.

The arrest warrant alleges Jones raped the woman, who was intoxicated, and that Washington “walked over and joined the act” by groping her, according to The Advocate.

Police say Washington, the unnamed minor and two other men charged with principle to third-degree rape met Brooks at Reggie’s before the alleged rape took place in a car, according to The Advocate.

Brooks’ blood-alcohol content was 0.319, about four times the legal limit for driving.

see BROOKS, page 4

Michigan State urges: ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ as gunfire erupts

BY HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH & JOEY CAPPELLETTI Associated Press

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP)

— They broke out windows to escape, barricaded doors and hid under blankets. They silenced their phones — afraid to make even the slightest sound for hours as police searched for a gunman who had already killed three students and critically wounded five others on the Michigan State University campus.

The terror felt by thousands of students — some experiencing their second mass shooting — was evident in texts to parents, posts on social media and in 911 calls.

It started around 8:30 p.m. Monday when Anthony McRae, a 43-year-old with a previous gun violation, opened fire inside an academic building and the student union.

Alerts sent out to students urged them to “run, hide, fight,” and video showed them fleeing as police swarmed toward the chaos. The massive search that ensued ended roughly three hours later when McRae fatally shot himself in a confrontation with police miles from campus, officials said Tuesday.

McRae was neither a student nor an employee of the university. The motive is a mystery.

Jaqueline Matthews, a member of the Michigan State rowing team, remembers crouching inside her school when gunfire erupted at nearby Sandy Hook see MICHIGAN, page 4

Brown said the pair shares goals of improving campus in sectors of public safety, transportation and transparency.

“We met each other and instantly clicked, and we kind of got to talking about what we wanted to change about LSU’s campus and what was already in place that we could kind of alter and make better,” Brown said.

Brown said she wanted to be a voice for underclassmen at LSU. She said she wanted to show that students don’t have to wait until later in their college careers to make changes.

“I just wanted to let them know that they can achieve their goals whenever they want to, they don’t have to wait for a cer-

Elementary. Now a decade later, the 21-year-old international law major was watching chaos outside her campus window, stunned to find herself here yet again.

“The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible,” she said in a TikTok video that she recorded in the early morning hours, demanding legislative action. “We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.” tain time,” Brown said.

She wasn’t the only one experiencing her second mass shooting. Jennifer Mancini told the Detroit Free Press that her daughter also had survived the November 2021 shooting that left four students dead at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan. Now a freshman at Michigan State, her daughter was traumatized anew.

“I can’t believe this is happening again,” said Mancini, who didn’t want her daughter’s name used.

Others across campus experienced the terror for the first time.

Isa serves as the recruitment chair for his fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. He said he serves on the Interfraternity Council and is director of recruitment and registration.

“It’s really eye opening to be in so many different areas, seeing different aspects of campus life,” Isa said.

They plan to improve transparency between LSU police, Baton Rouge police, students and staff, Brown said. In the wake of the crimes that occurred last semester involving LSU students, they want to improve safety and add more cameras and lights to campus, she said.

They also want to create a blue light system, where buttons will be placed around campus

Ted Zimbo, a 26-year-old astrophysics major, said he was heading back to his residence hall after an off-campus meeting when he saw police cars everywhere and a blood-covered woman hiding behind a car. She told him that someone came into her classroom and started shooting.

“Her hands were completely covered in blood. It was on her pants and her shoes,” he told The Associated Press. “She said, ‘It’s my friend’s blood.’”

That, he said, is when it hit him: “There was a real shooting, a mass shooting.”

The woman picked up her phone and started crying, unsure of what happened to her friend.

Zimbo spent the next three hours hunkered down in his Toyota SUV, a blanket tossed over him.

In a nearby residence hall, Karah Tanski said she spent two hours “crunched under a desk, crying, thinking I was literally going to die.”

The 22-year-old resident assistant said about 40 freshmen relied on her, social media and police scanners for updates during the lockdown. From empty that can immediately notify police, Brown said.

“We want to add another way for students to feel safe, at the click of a button, if they need help, they will get attention within seconds,” Brown said.

Parking and transportation is another issue area the team is eying. Isa said they want to institute a “No parking, no fine,” policy, meaning that if there’s sufficient evidence a student was unable to find a parking spot, they won’t be fined for parking somewhere they’re not supposed to.

Brown said they also have ideas to improve the bus system, such as making bus driver breaks scheduled so that students are aware of them in advance and can plan accordingly. She said currently the drivers are taking bomb threats to incorrect details about the shooter, the updates were sometimes wrong and added to the “mass hysteria” of the night, Tanski said.

About a half-mile east of campus, junior Aedan Kelley hid with his roommate, locking his doors and covering windows.

“It’s all very frightening. And then I have all these people texting me wondering if I’m OK, which is overwhelming,” he said.

Ryan Kunkel, 22, said he and his classmates turned off the lights and acted like there “was a shooter right outside the door.” For more than four hours, as they waited, “nothing came out of anyone’s mouth,” he recalled.

“This is supposed to be a place where I’m coming, learning and bettering myself. And instead, students are getting hurt.”

Dominik Molotky said he was in a Cuban history class when he and the other students heard a gunshot right outside the classroom. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that a few seconds later the gunman entered the classroom and fired three to four more rounds while the stu- breaks whenever they want. She also wants to make the expected arrival times of the buses more accurate.

Brown said improving the buses could improve the utility of the Park and Geaux system, where students pay $50 to park in lots off campus. They also want to add rentable electric scooters to campus, specifically in the Park and Geaux spots, she said.

Isa said he wanted to make a larger effort for SG to go out and see what the student body wants to see implemented.

“We want the students to voice their concerns,” Isa said. “We will be having weekly polls with, ‘What do you want? What events are you looking forward to? What are you most concerned dents took cover.

“After that we broke out the window, and I climbed out of there. And then I booked it back to my apartment,” he said.

Claire Papoulias, a sophomore, told NBC’s “Today” show she was listening to a history lecture when she heard gunshots and dropped to the floor.

“At that moment,” she said, “I thought that I was going to die, I was so scared.”

She said she quietly called her mom while classmates opened a window and helped people to jump to safety. Once outside, she grabbed her backpack and phone.

“And I remember,” she said, “I just ran for my life.”

Sophomores Jake Doohan and Nicole Stark were walking off campus when they heard about the shooting and took shelter, barricading a door with a dresser.

With the blinds closed so “not a speck of light could get out,” Stark said she felt like they were watching the news, as though “it’s not actually happening to us.” with? What do you want to see happen in the near future?’”

Isa said implementing public forums into SG’s operations is important to making sure they remain in touch with the interests of students. He said despite SG meetings being open to the public, he’s never seen many people from the public there. He said there needs to be more advertising for students to go to the meetings.

Brown said SG has been out of touch with the student body and hasn’t been properly serving as a liaison between students and staff.

SG elections will be held March 30-31.

The Reveille will be profiling all Student Government tickets ahead of the election.

The senselessness of it left Doohan stunned.

“It’s sad to think,” he said, “that things like this will happen just out of the blue to anybody or anywhere.”

John and Rona Szydzik, who both graduated from Michigan State University, left flowers on the campus Tuesday after spending the previous night hiding as ambulances wailed past their home.

As a high school teacher, Rona Szydzik has drilled for years to “run, hide, fight.” But she added: “To actually be in it, that’s very shocking.” For her husband, the flowers were a way to let the victims’ families know they cared, that they were praying.

“It really was tough,” he said, becoming emotional as he spoke.

Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Rick Callahan in Indianapolis; Ed White and Corey Williams in Detroit; Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri; Trisha Ahmed in St. Paul, Minnesota; and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.