Towson University student who was fatally shot was ‘soft-spoken, easygoing’

Nasir Majied loved basketball and playing Wii on game night with his friends.

Antonio Herbert, one of Majied’s buddies who attended Morgan State University with him a few years ago, remembered the 22-year-old as quiet and easygoing.

“Nas was very soft-spoken and gentle,” Herbert said Tuesday.

Majied was shot and killed Friday afternoon while driving north on York Road near the Towson Circle. Baltimore County Police are seeking the person who fired multiple rounds at the Towson University undergraduate at 3:20 p.m.

“There was never a case with guns involved or knives involved with him,” Herbert said after attending a vigil Mass hosted by the university’s Catholic campus ministry.

“I don’t know what the heck happened that day,” he added.

A motive for the shooting is unclear.

Court records show that Majied had a history of driving erratically. Baltimore County police charged him with assault last month after he ran a stoplight on York Road and initially fled from the officer who tried to pull him over. In October, Majied was charged with trespassing at Morgan State, assault and resisting arrest, according to court records. The charges were still pending at the time of his death.

Towson University President Mark Ginsberg urged students and community members in a message published last weekend to keep Majied’s family and friends in their prayers.

He added that the university is assisting county police in the investigation.

‘I wish I would’ve kept talking to him’

Herbert said he had not talked to Majied since last fall.

He didn’t even know the friend he used to shoot hoops with as a freshman at Morgan State in 2021 was now enrolled at Towson University.

Court records show that Majied was from Edison, New Jersey.

“I assumed he was back home in Jersey,” Herbert said. “I wish I would’ve kept talking to him and engaging.”

Herbert was one of 12 people who attended the Mass that the Rev. Mike Misulia celebrated in Majied’s honor on Tuesday in a chapel run by the university’s Newman Center. The center is a hub for the secular campus’s Catholic ministry.

Misulia, chaplain of the Newman Center, said he did not know Majied or whether he was Catholic, but that did not matter.

He stressed that memorial Masses are part of the Catholic tradition.

“I consider all Towson students under my spiritual care,” Misulia said. “It’s important to provide an outlet to process grief and offer prayers to the departed.”

‘An act of senseless violence’

In the middle of his homily, Misulia acknowledged that the unknown shooter’s choice to kill Majied defies reason.

“When faced with a tragedy of this sort we have a phrase even in our popular English language that we apply,” the priest said. “We call it ‘an act of senseless violence,’ because it literally makes no sense. It defies love. It defies life. And therefore it defies rational thinking and human nature itself.”

Zizi Okafor, a Towson University sophomore and Nottingham area native, said she was comforted by Misulia’s words but is still in shock that a fellow student was shot and killed not even a half-mile off campus.

“It could’ve been anybody,” she said. “Me or any one of us could’ve been shot. I don’t know what was going on in the shooter’s head to open fire in broad daylight.”

Recent Towson University graduate Sophie Okere said Majied’s death makes her question just how safe she and her friends really are.

“I used to think Towson was a safe space, but is it?” the 22-year-old said, noting that she is the same age as Majied.

Misulia encouraged both the students and community members who attended the Mass to recognize that the pain of grief is the direct result of human beings’ ability to love.

“Love is the best thing we have going for us,” Misulia said. “You don’t need to be religious, you don’t need to be philosophical, you don’t need a degree in psychological anthropology to know that love alone makes life worth living.”