TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Grand jurors called actions of police "heroic" and cleared five officers of wrongdoing in killing a gunman who had shot students at a Florida State University library.
Early on Nov. 20, authorities say 31-year-old Myron May shot inside and just outside the library where hundreds of students were studying on the Tallahassee campus. Three people were hit. Most seriously wounded was 21-year-old student Farhan "Ronny" Ahmed, who was left paralyzed from the waist down.
The grand jury report revealed some more details of the frantic moments after gunfire erupted at Stozier Library.
FSU police officer Oma "Zack" Nations was the first to arrive three minutes after the call. Nations saw May walking back and forth in front of the library and ordered him to drop his .380 semi-automatic pistol.
May shook his head and told the officer "I'm gonna make you kill me." He then raised his gun in the direction of Nations and fired a shot. Nations opened fire as did four other officers. May was shot approximately 15 times, the report said.
Leon County jurors on Tuesday heard from witnesses and went over physical evidence collected from the scene inside and outside Strozier Library, which is in the middle of FSU's campus a mile west of the state Capitol.
In a brief four-page report, jurors praised the actions of police and the FSU dispatcher who responded quickly to the first emergency call.
"We find that the actions of these officers, specifically those of Officer Oma "Zack" Nations in confronting May were heroic and that without these efforts, May would have caused even more injury and death to the officers and civilians in the area," states the presentment from the grand jury.
Grand jurors were told that one of the bullets fired by May ripped through the chest of Ahmed and lodged just four centimeters from his heart.
A few minutes before the final confrontation with police, May shot a library employee in the leg and he attempted to shoot a second employee but there appeared to a problem with his gun. After pulling the trigger multiple times, he walked away from the library welcome desk and appeared to reload it.
When May, a 2005 FSU graduate and an attorney, arrived on campus that night, he tried to enter the library where students were studying for upcoming exams. But he was blocked by lobby security barriers that permit only students and staff inside.
Videos and a journal obtained by police indicate May, who went on to graduate from law school at Texas Tech, thought he was being watched and targeted by the government. He also complained to police and property managers in New Mexico that cameras were watching him in his apartment and that he heard voices talking about and laughing at him, according to police reports that were released.
