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Man charged with murder in South Carolina State University shooting

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[January 27, 2014]  By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) — A man accused of shooting a fellow student to death after an argument outside a dormitory at South Carolina State University was arrested on a murder charge on Saturday, state police said.

Justin Bernard Singleton, 19, was taken into custody for the Friday shooting death of 20-year-old Brandon Robinson, a member of the school's football team, the State Law Enforcement Division said in a statement.

Police on Friday said they were searching for four suspects believed to be involved in the shooting, which occurred at about 1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT) on the campus of the college in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

On Saturday, police said Singleton had shot Robinson in the neck while the two were arguing outside a residence hall. Robinson later died at a nearby hospital.

It was not immediately clear whether police were still looking for other suspects.

Singleton is a sophomore at South Carolina State University, an official at the school said on Saturday.


Robinson, a junior majoring in industrial engineering technology, played outside linebacker and defensive end for the school's football team, university officials said in a statement.

"Our hearts are heavy with grief and sorrow by the senseless act of violence, which took too soon a beloved member of our university family," University President Thomas J. Elzey said in the statement.

South Carolina State University has an enrollment of about 3,200 students. Orangeburg, a city of nearly 14,000 people, is located about 75 miles northwest of Charleston.

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The shooting was the latest in a rash of gun attacks at schools across the United States.

On Tuesday, a male student was shot and stabbed to death in a classroom at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The day before, a student was shot and critically wounded outside an athletic center at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.

Last week, there were shootings of two students at a high school in Philadelphia, one at a high school in Georgia and two at a middle school in New Mexico.

(Reporting by Harriet McLeod; writing by Colleen Jenkins; editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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