Quick Lockdown After College Shooting

Salley was in the cafe when the shooting happened. He came out to find his friend on the ground. "They had Shalita on the floor, and my friend Fats was holding her," he said. "She was just laying there."

He said other students carried Pugh to Evers Hall. "After that, the ambulance came to get [Pugh] and a helicopter came and got Shalita. And then they told everybody to go back to the dorm."

Middleton was taken to Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., with serious wounds. "They could potentially be life-threatening," Holmes, the university spokesman, said.

Carolyn Dowdle, a neighbor of Middleton's mother, said she had talked with her several times yesterday and was told about Middleton's condition and surgeries.

At Wilson High on Friday, the school psychologist consoled members of the cheerleading squad. Sharron Pittman-Brice, the head cheerleading coach, said that when Middleton tried out, "I'll never forget, she came to me and said, 'I'm Shalita Middleton, and I'm representing the big girls.' That became her nickname. We called her BG for big girl. . . . She was the best. She had all the energy in the world."

Middleton was an outgoing student who was intent on attending Delaware State, said Ravyn Hall, an adviser with the nonprofit D.C. College Access Program. "She's a fighter, and when she has the willpower, she can't be stopped. I just pray that she pulls through," Hall said.

Pugh was taken to Kent General Hospital in Dover.

Salley said the two wounded students are friends. "Everybody knows who did the shooting. But nobody told. . . . Depending on where you come from, it's not the right thing to do," he said.

This was "students against students," said Allen L. Sessoms, the school's president.

"This is safer than some of the places they come back to. But they bring some of the tensions and some of the issues with them to campus. . . . This is a case of our students making very poor choices and acting incredibly badly."

Delaware State started the school year in mourning, after four current and incoming students were shot execution-style at an elementary school in Newark, N.J., in August.

"We're still not over that shooting in Jersey," said senior Franz Delima, a physics and engineering major. "We still haven't gotten over that, and now this thing happens."