Local, state and federal law enforcement were quickly on the scene Wednesday morning following a shooting at UCLA that left two injured.
“Two people were shot,” said University Spokesman Tod Tamberg.
The condition of the two is not yet none and the shooter remains on the loose. UCLA locked down the campus just after 10AM local time while law enforcement search for the shooter. People are being asked to shelter in place at an engineering building where the shooting occurred. In addition to the LAPD and UCLA Campus Police both the FBI and the ATF sent agents to assist.
LAPD has mobilize a SWAT team which is believed to be on the scene.
Local news coverage has helicopters in the area of the Westwood neighborhood where the shooting occurred and shows students walking out of buildings hands on heads as the police continue their search.
According to the Daily Bruin, the shooter was wearing a black jacket and black pants.
“The whole campus just started running and I started running too,” Mehwish Khan, a 21-year-old psycho-biology student said by mobile phone with a reporter while sheltering in a library with others.
“Everyone was very confused. We got in a building, and no one knew what was going on,” she said.
“A lot of people thought it was a joke or a drill,” she said.
FINAL UPDATE ON UCLA SHOOTING: 12:29
After a lockdown that had thousands barricading themselves wherever they found themselves in a lockdown that lasted around two hours. The LAPD have declared the lockdown over and the campus not to be a risk as apparently the two found dead look to have been involved in a murder suicide.
”The important thing for people to take away from this is the campus is now safe,” said LAPD chief Charlie Beck.
UPDATE ON UCLA SHOOTING: 11:29 PDT
Unfortunately the Los Angeles police are now saying that two were killed in the UCLA shooting today. Unlike most universities across the country UCLA remains in session while a number of universities have finished the year or are on break before a summer session begins.
The UCLA shooting, beyond the deaths, affects tens of thousands with the campus home to around 43,000 students.
Rafi Sands, vice president of UCLA’s student government, told the LA Times that he and other students were using their belts to secure doors from inside when word of the UCLA shooting spread.
“We get a lot of Bruin Alerts for small things,” he said. “It took a while for everyone to realize this is serious.”
The last day of classes at UCLA was scheduled for June 3. Graduation is set to take place on June 10 and June 11.
Early reports are now saying that both victims in the UCLA shooting were male.
The sheer size of the campus and the Engineering IV building alone should see that the lockdown is in place for some time according to former FBI Special Agent Steve Moore in an interview with KTLA TV5.
“If you want to search (a) four-bedroom house carefully enough to ensure, as if somebody’s life depends on it, that nobody is in that house, it’s going to take eight or nine SWAT officers an hour to do that,” Moore said. “Now imagine a 10-story, 15-story building — whether they’re classrooms or dorms — imagine also that you have to check every crawlspace, every overhead in the buildings.”
