A shooting was reported at UCLA Wednesday morning, prompting the school to send out an alert telling everyone on campus to go into lockdown around 10 a.m. PST. The shooting allegedly took place in Boelter Hall, an engineering building.
BruinAlert: Shooting at Engineering 4. Go to secure location and deny entry (lockdown) now!
— UCLA Bruin Alert (@UCLABruinAlert) June 1, 2016
Police investigating possible shooter at UCLA’s Boelter Hall. Observe campus wide lockdown.
— UCLA Newsroom (@UCLAnewsroom) June 1, 2016
UPDATE: After several hours on lockdown, the shooting resulted in two deaths, determined to be the result of a murder-suicide. According to the Los Angeles Times, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck confirmed that the shooter was one of the two men who were killed in a small classroom in the campus’ engineering complex and stated officially that “The campus is now safe.”
BruinAlert: All Clear BruinAlert: All Clear.
— UCLA Bruin Alert (@UCLABruinAlert) June 1, 2016
Many students found themselves terrified and surprised at the shooting.
“We get a lot of Bruin Alerts for small things,” said Rafi Sands, Vice President of UCLA’s student government. “It took a while for everyone to realize this is serious.”
Other students simply did not understand why this horrific event had to occur. Student Nick Terry told the LA Times, “It just seems so pointless, two days left of school and it’s going to end on this note?”
The motive of the shooting is not yet known. “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,” said CNN senior law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes.