Two campus police officers were shot dead at a college in Virginia on Tuesday, while one student was killed and another was injured in a shooting at a school in Minnesota on the same day.

Virginia State Police stated in a post on Twitter that two agents, a campus law enforcement officer and a campus safety officer, were shot before the suspect fled the scene at the institution in Virginia.

Two officers have been shot in an active shooter incident at Bridgewater College, Virginia State Police tweeted https://t.co/W6b0WSdbgF

— CNN (@CNN) February 1, 2022

According to the same statement posted on the school's website, multiple law enforcement agencies arrived on the Bridgewater College campus at 1:20 p.m. (1820 GMT) in response to active shooter reports.

(1/2) Around 1:20 p.m. Feb. 1 Bridgewater College Police, Town of Bridgewater Police, @VSPPIO, Rockingham County Sheriff's Office, @HarrisonburgPD, Augusta Sheriff’s Office, Town of Dayton Police, FBI & @VirginiaDWR responded to a report of an active shooter on BC's campus.

— Bridgewater College (@BridgewaterNews) February 1, 2022

The suspect, a 27-year-old male named Alexander Wyatt Campbell, was caught later, with a "non-life-threatening gunshot wound," according to Virginia State Police.

It was not yet clear if he had been shot by police or if the wound was self-inflicted. He has already been charged with murder, police said.

According to local media, the town of Bridgewater, which is roughly two and a half hours south of the US capital of Washington and home to Bridgewater College, sent an alert around 1:30 pm warning of an active shooter situation. The school issued an all-clear notice on its website around 4:30 pm. 

This is an all clear notification. More information will come via campus email.

— Bridgewater College (@BridgewaterNews) February 1, 2022

Kasey Truslow, a 21-year-old student, told the Washington Post that she heard a gunshot outside a classroom building's window. "After the second shot, we got on the floor. We remained on the floor for an hour," she said. 

Governor of Virginia Glen Youngkin said on Twitter, "The situation at Bridgewater College has been explained to me. The shooter has been apprehended, and state and municipal authorities have arrived on the site."

Killed in cold blood

The cops were named John Painter and J.J. Jefferson by the school. The two "were shot and died on campus while protecting us," according to a statement on the college's website from president David Bushman.

"These officers were close friends, known to many of us as the 'dynamic duo.' John was J.J.’s best man at his wedding this year. They were beloved by students, faculty, and staff. I hurt their families and loved ones, as I know we all do," the statement continued. Bridgewater Mayor Ted Flory posted a statement on the small town's website.

"Bridgewater is shocked by today’s senseless violence at Bridgewater College," Flory said. "We are heartbroken by the needless injuries and loss of life."

President Joe Biden tweeted about the tragedy, adding that he and his wife "are praying for the families of those who were lost." "Gun violence against law enforcement officers is sickening, and it must end," he said.

A similar incident hits Minnesota

Officials said that another incident took place at midday in Richfield, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, and one student was killed and another was injured.

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According to Richfield Police Chief Jay Henthorne, the perpetrators opened fire on the youngsters on a walkway outside the South Education Center before speeding away in a car.

Two suspects were eventually apprehended, according to the article, with acquaintances of the victim identifying the deceased student as Jamari Rice, the son of Black Lives Matter activist Cortez Rice, according to several local journalists.

Last year, Cortez Rice was arrested and charged with attempting to intimidate a judge overseeing the prosecution of ex-police officer Kim Potter, who murdered a Black man in April, after claiming she mixed up her taser with her firearm during a traffic stop.

Stray bullets kill bystanders too

Days apart, a child in his car seat, a man in his bed, and a woman walking with her mother were all killed as gun violence spreads across the United States. 

In addition to the large number of people killed in suicides and homicides in some US cities, an unknown number of people are killed by gunshots that were not meant for them.

The deaths can elicit brief spurts of media and police attention, similar to the country's periodic horror at mass shootings, but then fade away until the next disaster comes.

"It happens so regularly," said Chris Herrmann, a gun violence expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. "If this happened in a foreign country, it would be headline news." The southern US city of Atlanta was the scene of two cases this month.

On January 16, a 31-year-old British astronomer, Matthew Willson, was in bed when he heard gunshots outside his girlfriend's apartment and was fatally shot shortly after.

"It's impossible to comprehend how it is even true," his sister Kate Willson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

About a week later, Kerri Gray was driving with her six-month-old baby Grayson Fleming-Gray when she heard a disturbance and two cars rushed by. "There was no smashed glass, and no tears were shed. It happened in an instant after which her child was killed, she informed reporters.

On the afternoon of January 22, Melissa Ortega, eight years old, was strolling down a Chicago sidewalk when a man attempted to shoot another but instead killed her.

"He took away my purpose for being. The reason I got up every day. He took away a life full of dreams," the girl's mother Araceli Leanos told Univision TV in Spanish. 

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stated that they do not keep count of stray bullet deaths in the United States, where guns kill roughly 40,000 people each year, the majority of whom commit suicide.

'Bullet in the head' 

Statistics in the United States distinguish between accidental and deliberate homicides, but not the circumstances.

Herrmann, a gun violence expert, estimated that stray bullet deaths accounted for 1-2% of all firearm deaths and that the number of shootings rose or dropped in lockstep with the total number of shootings.

"When there was a 10% increase in shootings, one would see a 10 percent increase in unintended targets," he added, lamenting the official terminology "targets" as de-humanizing.

Since the pandemic and racial justice rallies in 2020, America's gun violence problem has worsened, and by the end of 2021, major cities like Philadelphia, Austin, Columbus, and Indianapolis were reporting annual homicide records.

Despite the fact that nationwide killings were still below the highs of the 1980s and 1990s, they surged at a rate not witnessed since national records began in 1960 in 2020.

According to the Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting consultancy, guns sales established a record in 2020 with over 23 million sold, followed by nearly 20 million sales in 2021. Millions of these firearms were sold to first-time gun owners, who experts fear may lack proper safety instruction.

"A lot of inexperienced people handling guns is always a recipe for disaster," said Peter Squires, professor of criminology at the University of Brighton in Britain.

To honor a holiday or special occasion, this barrage of weaponry can also launch a shower of celebratory fire into the sky. "But the bullets come down and hit people often a mile from where the gun was fired," he noted. However. it's the bullet intended for someone else that makes many victims.