After shooting near Mizzou, she got a phone alert. ‘It’s kind of scary.’
After a fatal shooting near the University of Missouri’s campus early Saturday morning, Raygan McDile received an alert on her phone. She ignored it at first.
“I feel like that happens kind of often,” McDile, a junior at Mizzou studying middle school English education, said in an interview. “Like, OK, another shooting.”
But McDile quickly learned more about the shooting in a group chat for Black students at Mizzou. The chat encouraged students to be safe and show support for the woman who had been killed, Aiyanna Williams, a student at nearby Stephens College.
“They were just providing a moment to just, like, grieve and show support for that student,” McDile said. “I felt really sad after that.”
Students across the sprawling campus of Missouri’s flagship institution are grappling with the aftermath of the fatal shooting near a popular bar strip in downtown Columbia. The shooting just hours before the school’s homecoming parade has renewed a yearslong debate over guns and public safety in Missouri.
Columbia Police have charged one suspect, 23-year-old Florida resident Misael Covarrubias. Police allege that Covarrubias was in an argument and fired several shots into a crowd just before 2 a.m. on Saturday, striking three people who were not involved in the altercation.
Williams later died from her injuries.
Mizzou responses to shooting
McDile, who hails from St. Louis, said she’s noticed an uptick in reported shootings recently and has tried to avoid traveling from campus to downtown Columbia.
“I feel like now it’s kind of scary, because I’m getting the alerts more often than when I was a freshman,” she said. “You want to have a good time and you want to go and, like, spend time with your friends to celebrate stuff, but now it’s just, like, you gotta worry about getting shot.”
The shooting has seemingly sparked tensions between University of Missouri and Columbia officials.
The university’s top leader declared a “crime crisis” in Columbia, writing a blistering letter to the Columbia mayor that demanded policy changes and threatened to involve Missouri’s Republican governor.
UM System President Mun Choi called for more police downtown, elimination of policies “that attract criminals to the region” and a cleanup of homeless encampments.
The letter, however, sidestepped any talk of changes to Missouri’s gun laws, among the loosest in the nation.
Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe, in response, welcomed support from Missouri and the university but requested that involvement be coordinated with the city’s police chief. Buffaloe has also called on leaders to “confront systemic issues that contribute to violence.”
“I would like to engage our state legislators in a conversation about gun control, since many of these incidents involve firearms—including individuals illegally in possession of them,” Buffaloe wrote in a letter to Choi. “This is an area where state-level action could provide crucial support to our local efforts.”
Students skeptical of Mizzou response
McDile and other Mizzou students who spoke with The Star questioned Choi’s decision to mention homelessness in his call to action in response to the shooting.
“I feel like that’s an interesting way to go about it,” McDile said. “Me, personally, that’s not something that I would prioritize to kind of lessen the crime.”
Saturday’s shooting has also deepened ongoing fractures in Missouri over the state’s approach to gun violence. Blue-leaning cities, such as Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis, have pushed for stricter gun laws but have faced fierce resistance from Republicans in Jefferson City.
In 2022, The Star revealed that a rise in gun violence in Columbia echoed a trend across the state of Missouri, which at the time had the fifth highest gun homicide rate nationwide.
But despite ongoing arguments over crime and public safety in Missouri’s fourth most populous city, most reports never list Columbia anywhere near the most dangerous cities in Missouri.
Missouri data shows that violent crime has been trending downward in Columbia each year since 2021. In 2024, for example, violent crime decreased nearly 8% since the previous year.
Mia Kravitz, a junior English major, said the shooting happened near Nash Vegas, her favorite bar in Columbia. She said she was disappointed by the university’s immediate reaction in an email sent to students.
“I got that email about, like, what they’re gonna do to prevent it, which I don’t think is gonna do much,” said Kravitz, who said she learned in a social work class about gang violence in Columbia.
“The take I got (from the university) was that it’s like the homeless problem, which we all know that’s not what it is,” she said. “And I feel like by adding more cops on the streets, it’s still not going to prevent, like, the bigger issue.”
Another student, Patrick Hatzis, a senior Journalism major, said he feels relatively safe in downtown Columbia. But he said he’s concerned about an increase in gun violence across the country.
“I think the sad reality is that…in the U.S. especially, shootings have become normal and it’s really sad,” Hatzis said. “And I think the fact that…I feel safe shows the normality of these shootings and how often they happen.”
For the students across the University of Missouri, Saturday’s shooting in Columbia exposed simmering fears across the country over gun violence at or near college campuses, major destinations for fans, alumni and parents of students.
McDile said she encouraged her fellow students to still go out and have a good time. She just wants everybody to be safe, she said.
“Go out, have fun. Do your thing. Be aware of your surroundings. Walk in groups,” she said. “Take care of each other.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 2:58 PM.
