US Gun Violence: Murder-Suicide at California Campus
Local Editor
Two men died Wednesday in a murder-suicide at the University of California's Los Angeles campus, prompting a lockdown and a massive security deployment at the sprawling facility.
Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said both victims were found with gunshot wounds in an office on campus. At least three shots were fired and a gun was found at the scene.
"At about 10:00 this morning a homicide and a suicide occurred in the engineering facility... of the UCLA campus on the south side," Beck told reporters. "It appears it is entirely contained."
"There is evidence there could be a suicide note but we don't know at this point," Beck added.
The shooting prompted a campus-wide lockdown as hundreds of officers and tactical response teams as well as federal agents rushed to the university, where students are in the middle of final exams.
All university classes were cancelled for the day and the lockdown was lifted at around noon.
"We are in the process of releasing the campus back to the students," Herren said. "They are in their finals. This is a very stressful time for them, and we're trying to alleviate that."
Students said they received alerts on their phones from the university notifying them of the shooting and advising them to take shelter.
Officials said they were still piecing together what prompted the murder-suicide.
"Tragically so many of these active shooter situations end like this," Beck said.
The White House said President Barack Obama had been notified of the California shooting and had asked his team to keep him updated on the situation.
Gun violence is a part of daily life in the United States where readily-available firearms claim around 30,000 lives each year.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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