An armed man suspected of having shot two women in an aviation maintenance college in Inglewood was identified on Saturday as Jesse Figueroa, 40, from Monterey Park, who had recently been hired as a security guard on the campus.
Friday, Figueroa entered an office of the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology and opened fire on the two victims with a handgun, said the mayor of Inglewood, James Butts, a former police chief of the city of Santa Monica.
“It was not an act of random violence in the city,” said Butts to Times. “It was an act of violence at work.”
The suspect moved away from the campus in his car, but was placed by Los Angeles police on Friday evening in Koreatown after Inglewood police shared a description of the license plate and the suspect vehicle with partner agencies, according to Butts, who said that Figueroa was in detention in the city of Inglewood.
He is detained on bail of $ 1 million as part of the shooting, according to prison files.
The two victims were taken to a trauma center in Long Beach, according to the fire service of the County of Los Angeles, which did not release their name.
Butts said one of the victims was dean in college and was in critical condition. The other works in college as a receptionist and she was taken to the hospital and was stable, he said.
“We feel terrible for the families of these two ladies,” said the mayor.
Butts said that there was no clear reason for the shooting, but that Figueroa was employed on the Inglewood campus for a short time as an unarmed security guard.
The Armegun that would be used in the shooting is in the vehicle of Figueroa and the police plan to search for the weapon once they obtained a search warrant on Saturday, Butts added. A 9 mm shell case has been recovered from campus.
“Situations like this are very shocked for a community because it promotes a feeling of random and threatens security,” said Butts. “This is a university campus; You do not see any reason that there is this type of crime at school. ”
The police spent more than an hour going from one room to the other on the campus looking for a suspect or an additional victim, but did not find anyone, the authorities said. Inglewood police said they had cleaned the campus around 5:15 p.m.
A school student told ABC7 news that he and his classmates had been invited to shelter in a campus building for about 90 minutes.
“Everyone has become terrified at the same time and I have the impression that we could not really panic,” he told the station. “We really had to stay cool and the police were there to do their jobs and we just did not want to intervene, so I hope that all those involved are safe.”
Campus president Christopher Becker told ABC7 that there was 24/7 security on campus and regular safety exercises, fire exercises and earthquake exercises.
“We are an aviation school, so security is one of the things we focus on the most,” said Becker at the point of sale. “It is a beautiful community of students and teachers and staff. We all hear ourselves very well, we deepened deeply on each other and it is therefore difficult for all of us. ”
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