Two New York University business students were killed while on vacation in Puerto Rico over the weekend, school officials said.
The victims were identified as Franco Medina Angulo and Sergio Palomino Ruiz, international students from Peru who were enrolled in the Stern School of Business, an NYU spokesperson said.
The two students were on vacation in Puerto Rico with a group to celebrate a birthday before finals when things went awry, a school spokesperson said.
They were bystanders “caught in an altercation between two unrelated groups” when they were killed early Saturday morning, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement.
He described them as the “victims of senseless, tragic gunfire.”
Puerto Rico police said the shooting took place in front of a business on Loiza Street in San Juan.
The Criminal Investigations Corps of Puerto Rico police are investigating the incident and shared video showing a woman shooting from the sidewalk and asked for help in identifying her in connection with the students’ deaths.
“The University has been in touch with the remaining group members to offer them support and aid; none of the others were injured,” Beckman said in a statement. “NYU has also reached out to the families of the slain students to provide whatever assistance we can and to express the sympathies of the University community.”
Counseling services will be available to students in the program and close friends of the slain students.
“NYU grieves today with the family, loved ones, and friends of these students, whose lives ended tragically, suddenly, and far too early.”
A dean for the Stern School of Business said that a scholarship will be established in each of Angulo and Ruiz’s names, NBC New York reported.
A fundraiser raising donations to support their families has raised over $44,000 as of Tuesday.