The crowd leaving a Florida A&M homecoming game was packed so tightly that officers could not get ambulances to the wounded and carried them out in their arms instead.
Tallahassee police charged a 15-year-old boy, named as Anthony Rivers III, with 11 counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a delinquent in the mass shooting that wounded 11 people outside Bragg Memorial Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla. Officers arrested the teenager Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. State Attorney Jack Campbell said Rivers will be charged as an adult. At his first court appearance on Monday, Oct. 26, a judge ordered him held in secure detention and barred him from contacting any victims or witnesses.
The gunfire broke out just before 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, near Perry and Manatee streets behind the stadium, about two hours after the Rattlers’ homecoming loss.
Six juveniles were among those shot, the youngest 11 years old. No deaths have been reported. At least three victims suffered serious injuries, authorities said, and one person struck by gunfire was a FAMU student, police said. The grandmother of one victim was hurt while running from the scene, not shot.
What the Chief Called Heartbreaking
Police Chief Lawrence Revell said it was “especially heartbreaking” that kids were among the wounded.
Officers ran toward the gunfire, Revell said. Police declared the scene secure around 9:45 p.m.
Jayden Dubois, a FAMU student, heard the gunshots and was trampled in the rush that followed, he said.
Five of the wounded had gone home from the hospital by Sunday morning and six were still being treated, one in critical condition, police said.
Shot Twice, Now in the ICU
Tramon Jackson, a Leon High School sophomore and junior varsity football player, was shot twice, in the shoulder and the back. Leon head coach Ricky Bell said Jackson was not involved in any altercation and was in the ICU as of Monday, Oct. 26. Leon County Schools said four of its students, from three different schools, were among the injured.
Bell, who visited the teenager in the hospital, spoke with his mother. “She told me what was going on and she said that he got shot twice,” Bell said.
Police Say No Victim Was the Target
Detectives believe only one shooter opened fire, Revell said. The shooting likely stemmed from an altercation between two or three people, he said, a dispute among several people who knew one another. It appears none of the victims was an intended target, police said Monday, Oct. 26.
Revell said additional arrests are possible and the investigation remains open, and investigators are looking for others who might have been involved. The department’s Violent Crimes Unit is leading the case. Detectives have reviewed digital evidence and canvassed the area, and investigators set up a tip hotline and an online link for public submissions.
Mayor John Dailey described the shooting as a horrific, heartbreaking tragedy for the city. FAMU told the public that its campus was safe and asked people to steer clear of the scene.
Tallahassee Has Been Here Before
FAMU is a historically Black university, and homecoming is one of its biggest weekends of the year, with the streets around the stadium packed with students, alumni and families. More than 20,000 fans watched Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Golden Lions beat the Rattlers 31-28.
The shooting has been described as one of the worst in Tallahassee’s history. The city of about 200,000 has seen several high-profile shootings in recent years: a gunman killed two people and wounded six others at Florida State’s student union in April 2025, and in 2022 one person was killed and eight wounded outside a liquor store near the FSU campus after a football game.
Gunfire has broken out at homecoming weekends at a number of other HBCUs lately. The Gun Violence Archive, which counts a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not counting the shooter, has recorded at least 383 of them in the U.S. so far in 2026. Its data make the FAMU shooting the 21st mass shooting in Florida this year.
