BY AARON MILLER
A campus shooting at UCLA- Los Angeles University- on Wednesday morning, has left two men dead in a murder that has sent shock waves through the city and country as a whole. Thousands of students ran for safety,many taking cover in their respective class rooms.
The gun man eventually turned the gun on himself inside a small office in the campus’ engineering complex.
Mayhem at the University followed a realization of what was occurring before their own eyes. Everywhere was in pandemonium, as students ran for their lives. A wide response from local and federal law enforcement provided assurance that the situation was under control; from that point on, that is. The damage had been done by then.
University officials cautioned students in a campus-wide alert to remain inside, unless instructed by police to leave. Beck said police were in the process of conducting an orderly end to the crisis.
HELICOPTER
Students could be seen on helicopter news footage walking out in a line with their hands above their heads as armed police officers scoured the campus.Authorities did not identify the victims and a motive was not immediately clear. One professor went on social media to circulate warnings of the shooting, as he himself ran for cover during the unfolding madness that suddenly gripped an institution where students had been sitting exams.
EXAMS
Exams had to be abandoned in a flash, as the greater importance of life instinctively put the ambitions of academic pursuits in its rightful secondary place. The shooting left students hiding in buildings across campus. Some secured doors with belts or created makeshift barricades to secure themselves in classrooms as word of the incident spread across campus. In another painful reminder of the dangers of guns in a country where maniacs are in no short supply, this recent shooting again raises the issue of gun control.
Election campaigners will here be faced with a biting election issue on a cancerous plague that has dogged America for decades, with no end in sight.
It remains unclear what the reason for the shooting was. Although a note is said to have been found on the ground, its contents have not yet been disclosed. This shooting at UCLA that has left two dead has once again brought fear to innocent students at a University who never thought it will happen there. Lucky indeed that the death toll wasn’t much higher.
Graduate student Jason La, 33, was sitting in Boelter Hall taking a test about 9:40 a.m. when an officer walked and told the class to lock the door and barricade it.
About a minute later the class was told to leave. Students began to move out of the building, then began running when an officer yelled at them to get away from the building, La said
Sean Lynch, the son of a professor who works in the engineering building, was exchanging text messages with his father as the campus was placed on lock down. Lynch said his father was in a colleague’s office and heard three gunshots but did not see the shooter.
Student Mehwish Khan, 21, said she ran to the Charles E. Young Research Library, where many other students were hiding. At around 10:45 a.m., she said, she and others had barricaded themselves in a restroom where they texted family and friends who were all giving different information about possible shooters.
“We are getting messages from all over,” she told a Times reporter in a text message.
Asked how she was doing, Khan said, “Okay. Just scared. And scared for all of my friends.”
Many students spoke with reporters only via text to adhere to UCLA protocol that asks students not to speak on their phones in such situations, they said.
Rafi Sands, vice president of UCLA’s student government, said he and about 30 other students used their belts to secure their classroom door after news of the shooter spread.
Sands, 20, of Oakland, said several different accounts of the shooting were funneling across campus through text messages and social media, and it took several minutes for the campus community to realize the seriousness of the situation.
“We get a lot of Bruin Alerts for small things,” he said. “It took a while for everyone to realize this is serious.”
Nick Terry drove to his architecture class from Silver Lake expecting to take a final at 11 and give a presentation at noon.
His vision for the day was quickly shattered when he arrived to find there was an active shooting situation on campus.
Terry, 29, said he felt more anger than fear.
“It just seems so pointless,” he said. “Two days left of school and it’s going to end on this note?
