Campus Alert Archive
SLU

A Teen Killed Across the Street, an Alert That Wouldn't Say 'Shots Fired': SLU's Controversial October 2025 Communications Choice

MOshootingadvisorymedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

At approximately 7:00 PM CDT on Monday, October 6, 2025, 16-year-old Darrell Price was shot and killed in the rear parking lot of a Jimmy John's and Papa Johns at the 3800 block of Laclede Avenue — across the street from Saint Louis University's Village Apartments. SLU's Department of Public Safety issued an alert about heavy police presence in the area but deliberately omitted the words 'shots fired' — a communications decision that drew sharp student criticism. Two suspects, ages 18 and 20, were taken into custody.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
1
Injured
1
Institution
Saint Louis University
Private R1 · MO
~15,000 studentsSLU Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstructionThe University News (SLU student newspaper) reporting on the alerts, which 'did not receive any alerts mentioning shots being fired'96 chars
SLU Alert: Heavy police presence near the Village Apartments. Avoid the area. Updates to follow.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed from SLU student-newspaper reporting that students received an email alert of a 'heavy police presence near the Village Apartments' and were advised to stay away, but the alert 'did not mention shots being fired'; the wording here is reconstructed around that paraphrase
SLU Director of Special Operations Joshua Johnson defended the omission, telling The University News that gunfire was not mentioned because the suspects had fled and 'shots fired' language could cause unnecessary panic — a controversial editorial choice in emergency-alert design
Sending an alert that names a 'heavy police presence' but omits the underlying cause (gunfire) is a transparency tradeoff that critics argue treats students as too fragile for accurate threat information
ALL CLEARSMS
Approximate reconstructionThe University News reporting on the SLU Alert all-clear126 chars
SLU Alert: Police activity in the area of Laclede has cleared. There is no ongoing threat to campus. Normal operations resume.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed; the all-clear similarly omitted reference to a fatal shooting having occurred — by the time it was sent, a 16-year-old had been killed across the street, but SLU's alert did not say so
The phrase 'no ongoing threat to campus' is technically accurate in Clery terms (suspects had fled, no campus-property violence) but obscures the seriousness of what occurred immediately adjacent
SLU's pattern in 2025 of off-campus shooting alerts that omit gunfire details became the subject of [later student-newspaper criticism](https://unewsonline.com/) and ongoing debate about appropriate alert language
Context

Background

Saint Louis University is a private R1 Jesuit institution in midtown St. Louis with about 15,000 students. At approximately 7:00 PM CDT on Monday, October 6, 2025, 16-year-old Darrell Price was shot in the 3800 block of Laclede Avenue — in the rear parking lot of a Jimmy John's and Papa Johns directly across the street from SLU's Village Apartments and Vandeventer Field. He died at the scene. A 20-year-old man, himself wounded by gunfire, was taken into custody, and an 18-year-old man later surrendered to police; investigators said three acquaintances had met in the parking lot and believed marijuana and a possible robbery attempt were involved. SLU's Department of Public Safety pushed alerts about heavy police presence but deliberately did not mention gunfire, a decision later defended by Joshua Johnson, director of special operations for SLU DPS, who said gunfire was omitted because the suspects had fled and 'shots fired' language could cause unnecessary panic. The decision became the subject of student criticism in The University News, which noted that this was the second off-campus shooting in the academic year — following an August 20, 2025 shooting near Reinert Hall that did not generate any DPS alert. The Laclede shooting joined a broader 2025 conversation about alert-content philosophy: when an institution chooses what to disclose, what gets withheld, and on what grounds.
Analysis

Key Findings

SLU's deliberate decision to omit 'shots fired' from alerts about a fatal shooting across the street was defended on anti-panic grounds but drew sharp student criticism for prioritizing institutional comfort over transparency
The October 6 shooting was the second 2025-26 academic-year off-campus shooting near SLU; the August 2025 Reinert Hall-area shooting received no campus alert at all, illustrating an inconsistent disclosure policy
Naming 'heavy police presence' without naming the underlying threat is an emergency-alert design pattern that prioritizes operational guidance ('avoid the area') over situational understanding
Director of Special Operations Joshua Johnson's public defense of the choice — that 'shots fired' language could cause unnecessary panic — reflects an institutional theory of alert content that treats students as audiences rather than agents capable of metabolizing accurate threat information
Outcome
Darrell Price, 16, was pronounced dead at the scene. A 20-year-old man, himself wounded by gunfire (non-life-threatening), was taken into custody, and an 18-year-old man later surrendered to police. No SLU students were involved. The Department of Public Safety later defended its decision not to mention gunfire in alerts on the grounds that suspects had fled and 'shots fired' language could cause unnecessary panic.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Student Paper
    Shooting near Saint Louis University kills one and injures another (The University News - SLU student newspaper)
    unewsonline.com
  2. News
    Two in custody after teen killed in shooting near SLU campus (First Alert 4)
    firstalert4.com
  3. News
    St. Louis Police investigating fatal shooting near SLU; 1 injured (FOX 2 Now)
    fox2now.com
  4. News
    1 killed, 1 injured in shooting near St. Louis University (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
    stltoday.com
  5. News
    One Dead, One Injured in Shooting Near Saint Louis University (Hoodline)
    hoodline.com
  6. News
    2 in custody after teen killed in shooting near Saint Louis University (KSDK)
    ksdk.com
Tags
shootingoff-campusfatalmissouriprivate-r1slu-alertnon-student-victimalert-omissioncommunications-criticismmidtown-st-louis
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion