WESTWOOD—A gunman was reported in the vicinity of the UCLA-Westwood Village area by an unidentified woman, Tuesday, October 13.
The woman was said to be the gunman’s former girlfriend, according to authorities.
The woman reported to police that she had gone home to her apartment on the 1000 block of Triverton Avenue to find her ex-boyfriend inside her home armed with a handgun and another unidentified person.
Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to her 911 call and investigated the area with several SWAT team and K-9 units.
A woman working nearby the scene of the incident, Elaine Kao, stated that she saw “over twenty police vehicles by the apartment buildings,” including about five helicopters circling the scene. A portion of Tiverton Avenue was closed to traffic during the police investigation.
The incident was reported by the woman at around 4:00 p.m., near the UCLA campus by Tiverton and Le Conte Avenue.
During the investigation, UCLA issued a campus-wide alert to warn undergraduate students to avoid the Trader Joe’s area until further notice.
Canyon News received an e-mail from a UCLA student who noted that extension students and graduate students were unaware of the gunman’s escape. The student further stated, “I think it’s completely appalling that more was not done to protect the students of UCLA.”
According to the student’s account of the evening, at approximately 5:40, UCLA’s campus was just as busy as it generally is after the incident had been reported; nothing seemed amiss on campus. However, on the streets of Tiverton, hundreds of UCLA students and local spectators were watching the Periscope live-stream of the apartment search while police barricaded the building the suspect was believed to be in.
The gunman’s ex-girlfriend told police she believed her ex-boyfriend was still inside her apartment structure. When police entered and swept the building at around 8:30 p.m. the suspect was not found in the building.
The gunman’s ex-girlfriend was able to safely exit her building without injury. There were no reports of anyone being harmed or held hostage from the incident.
Police are continuing their search and investigation for the gunman, and have not yet released a description or the gunman’s identity to the public.
