A gunman who allegedly opened fire at the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Inglewood, injuring two employees, on Friday has been arrested, authorities said.
The Inglewood Police Department responded to a call reporting a shooting at 8911 Aviation Blvd. at 3:39 p.m. Two women were taken to a trauma center in Long Beach in critical condition, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Fire Department said.
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said that a male suspect was taken into custody in Koreatown around 5:45 p.m. The Los Angeles Police Department made the arrest after police in Inglewood shared a description of the suspect’s license plate and vehicle with partner agencies, he said.
The suspect, whose name was not immediately released, is believed to be a former employee, Butts said. The man was reportedly wearing clothing that resembled a security guard’s uniform and was armed with a rifle, he said.
Both women were employees at the college, but their specific roles and what led to the shooting was not clear.
“The crime motive was related to the employment at the school,” said Butts, a 19-year veteran of the Inglewood Police Department. “It was not a random act of violence.”
A 9mm shell casing was recovered from the campus, he said.
“Situations like this are very jarring for a community because it promotes a sense of randomness and threatens safety,” Butts said. “This is a college campus; you see no reason that there would be this type of crime at school.”
Police spent more than an hour going from room to room on the campus in search of a suspect or additional victims, but did not find anyone, authorities said. Inglewood police said they cleared the campus about 5:15 p.m.
A student at the school told ABC7 News that he and his classmates were told to shelter inside a campus building for about 90 minutes.
“Everybody kind of got terrified at once and I just feel like we really couldn’t panic,” he told the station. “We really had to just kind of stay cool and the police were here to do their job and we just didn’t want to intervene, so I hope everybody that was involved is safe.”
Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology’s Inglewood campus is a trade school specializing in aviation maintenance education. Located a mile from Los Angeles International Airport, the campus offers an 18-month diploma and a 22-month associate degree to teach students how to repair and overhaul aircraft components and systems in preparation for Federal Aviation Authority certification exams.
Campus President Christopher Becker told ABC7 that there is 24/7 security on campus and regular safety drills, fire drills and earthquake drills.
“We’re an aviation school, so safety is one of the things that we focus on the most,” Becker told the outlet. “It’s a nice community of students and teachers and staff. We all get along really well, care about one another deeply and so this is hard on all of us.”
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