LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Two are reported dead after being shot to death by an unidentified assailant on the campus of UCLA in the Engineering IV building. Students are being evacuated while law enforcement clear the campus. With the campus located in downtown Los Angeles, police are expected to have a monumental task in locking down and securing the campus area from the rest of the metropolis.
According to CNN, Los Angeles Police Department has issued a “tactical alert” which will extend out their police force across the city.
via CNN
“So far we don’t know the nature of the shooting,” CNN senior law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes said. “If it’s a personal thing between a couple of students, then it will be a local police matter. If by chance it turned into a terrorist situation, then the FBI would have primary justification over that.”
The two people who died on campus as a result of this shooting have not been identified as either students or faculty. It is unknown if the shooting suspect is still on campus. And factors revolving around actually finding out if the assailant is still on campus or if he has escaped are pretty hard to pin down in a major metropolitan university campus.
UPDATE: The person responsible for the gun-related deaths is believed to be dead. LAPD officers have recovered a firearm from the scene and have identified what they believe to be the person who perpetrated the attacks.
We can rule out law-abiding concealed carriers on the campus of UCLA as the UCLA campus is “protected” by California’s Gun Free School Zone Act which prohibits all legal carry of firearms onto the campuses of universities and schools across the state.
So the only person on campus with a gun has to be a bad guy because there’s nobody left. And let’s take a wild guess and say he probably didn’t stop to contemplate the gravity of all the laws he was about to break by carrying illegally onto the UCLA campus.
Students received an alert some time after the shooting occurred.
via CNN
“We got the alert and a woman said, ‘This is not a joke, everyone get to the back of the dining hall because we have to stay away from the windows,'” Freshman Teddi Mattox told CNN. “We’re crowded back here, we’ve been here for at least an hour and a half. People are crying, they’re nervous, they’re shaking.”
Students are still sheltering in place while law enforcement go from building to building.
Because of the nature of this case, it highlights the importance of allowing law abiding citizens with the legal ability to carry concealed to do so where ever possible.
Coming from the state that decided to require background checks for ammunition purchases, it’s probably time for the citizens of California to seriously consider who they have placed their legislative trust in.