Students hope teenager killed on campus parking lot isn’t student, police arrest suspect

Students at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs returned to school Thursday morning after someone was reportedly shot and later died on a campus parking lot.

Just before 10 p.m. Wednesday night, Colorado Springs police responded to a shots fired call near the 1400 block of Austin Bluffs Parkway, or the parking lot of the UCCS Family Development Center.

A teenager had reportedly been shot and his friends drove him to the hospital but he didn’t survive his injuries. Now students are hoping it wasn’t someone they knew.

Hannah Mooney, a student who lives around the block said, “I want to know if it was a student if it was someone who worked there. I have friends who work there and people who drop off their kids there.”

Colorado Springs police have arrested Micahi Stacey Hughes, a 22-year-old who’s being charged with first-degree murder.

The building sits right across the street from the main campus and serves as a daycare for students with children. Young kids are dropped off while their parents are in class. The center usually closes at 6 p.m. hours before the shooting happened on Wednesday.

Evidence crews were seen combing through the fields of grass right alongside the Family Development Center. They were followed by a K-9 unit who also scoured the area. It’s unclear if they found anything.

Students said the extra police presence on campus didn’t make them feel unsafe. “I don’t feel like it was targetted since so I feel like I’m in a pretty safe location,” Matthew Hartshorn a UCCS Student said.

Jared Verner, spokesperson for UCCS and Colorado Springs Police department couldn’t confirm whether or not the man who died was associated with the school at all.

The center will remain closed on Thursday, but classes resumed as normal. An email from the university said the center should be back open on Friday.