Two dead in shooting on UCLA campus

LOS ANGELES— An apparent murdersuicide at a UCLA engineering building Wednesday drew hundreds of heavily armed officers who swarmed the sprawling Los Angeles campus, where students close to summer break barricaded themselves in classrooms as best they could before being evacuated later with their hands up.

About two hours after the first 911 call came in about 10 a.m., with the centre of campus still saturated with officers, Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck declared the threat over.

Two men were dead in an office, and authorities found a gun and what might be a suicide note, he said.

Authorities did not identify the men and a motive was not immediately clear.

The response to the shooting was overwhelming: Teams of officers in helmets and bulletproof vests who were looking for victims and suspects ran across the normally tranquil campus tucked in the city’s bustling west side.

Some with high-powered rifles yelled for bystanders to evacuate. Groups of officers stormed into buildings that had been locked down and cleared hallways as police helicopters hovered overhead.

Advised by university text alerts to turn out the lights and lock the doors where they were, many students let friends and family know they were safe in social media posts. Some described frantic evacuation scenes, while others wrote that their doors weren’t locking and posted photos of photocopiers and foosball tables they used as barricades.

It was the week before final exams at UCLA, whose 43,000 students make it the largest campus in the UC system. Classes were cancelled Wednesday and resume Thursday.