Two people have been killed and four more were injured as a gunman opened fire on students at a North Carolina university.
UNC Charlotte was placed on lockdown and staff and students were told to find a safe location amid the horrifying scenes on Tuesday.
Paramedics said two people were found dead and that four others were injured, three of which were in a critical condition.
Students were among the victims, but officials have not said how many.
Officers assembling nearby for a concert rushed to a classroom building and arrested the suspected gunman in the room where the shooting took place.
The suspect has been identified by police as Trystan Andrew Terrell, 22. He was taken into custody with charges pending.
"Shots reported near kennedy. Run, Hide, Fight. Secure yourself immediately," the university said in an alert, referring to the school's Kennedy building on campus.
The university said police were sweeping campus buildings.
Sam Rice, a senior on UNC Charlotte's tennis team, that he was in the library studying for a final exam when he heard people yelling "shooter, shooter".
He told Spectrum News that police were shouting, telling people to stay down and stay on the floor.
"It doesn't feel real,” he told the television station.
Campus Police Chief Jeff Baker said authorities received a call in the late afternoon that a suspect armed with a pistol had shot several students.
Monifa Drayton, an supply professor, was walking onto campus when she heard the shots.
She said she directed students fleeing the scene to take cover inside a parking deck.
"I heard one final gunshot and I saw all the children running towards me," she said.
"We started to get all the children pulled into the second floor of the parking deck and the rationale was if we're in the parking deck and there's a shooter and we don't know where he is, he won't have a clear shot."
The suspect's grandfather Paul Rold of Arlington, Texas, said that Terrell and his father moved to Charlotte from the Dallas area about two years ago after his mother died.
Asked about the gun attack, he said: "You're describing someone foreign to me... this is not in his DNA."
The university has more than 26,500 students and 3,000 faculty and staff.
