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LAPD responded to reports of an active shooter yesterday despite there not being one. Now, it is being reported that a teacher “having an episode” caused the panic by telling her students there was an active shooter. Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Phillip Tingirides said the unidentified professor suffered “some sort of an episode”.
Tingirides said the professor, who has not been identified, told her students to lock the doors and get on the floor. Then, she began yelling, “active shooter”, causing campus-wide panic.
Worried students began to alert friends and authorities, telling them there was an active shooter on campus. Los Angeles police responded to the campus around 12:17 PM in the 3500 block of University Avenue. A shelter in place order was issued, and after a “systematic search” and investigation, Los Angeles authorities concluded that there was no shooting on campus and that the community was safe.
via Washington Post:
The alert frightened many, coming the day after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. At least 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured at a concert Sunday night in Las Vegas.
Police responded in force to the false alarm at USC. An alert was sent out minutes after a 911 call, warning people to shelter in place. The Daily Trojan, the campus newspaper, reported a SWAT team searched Fertitta Hall at the USC Marshall School of Business while helicopters hovered overhead. The paper quoted a student, Remy Porsella, who said he heard screaming and saw hundreds of people running out the doors of Fertitta Hall. “It was full panic,” Porsella told the Daily Trojan.
Officer Irma Mota with the Los Angeles Police Department said there was a report of a shooting in a building at about 12:20 p.m. local time. But officials found no evidence of any threat. Within an hour or so, they were able to reassure the campus community.
Tingirides, who does not believe this was some kind of test or drill, said the professor was in the custody of the LAPD. The faculty member is also undergoing a mental health evaluation.
