A gunman suspected of shooting two women at an aviation maintenance academy in Inglewood was identified as Jesse Figueroa, 40, of Monterey Park, who was recently hired as a security guard on campus.
Santa Monica Police Chief Inglewood Mayor James Butts said Figueroa walked into an office at the Spartan Aeronautics Technical College on Friday and opened fire at two victims with a pistol.
“This is not a random act of violence in the city,” Butts told The Times. “It’s workplace violence.”
According to Bass, Fineroa said he was detained in the Inglewood City prison and the suspect drove off on his campus in Los Angeles on Friday night.
He was detained on $1 million in bail, according to prison records.
According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department, two victims were taken to a trauma center in Long Beach, which did not release their names.
Butz said one of the victims was the dean of the university and was in a critical condition. He said the other job at the college was the receptionist, and she was taken to the hospital and was very stable.
“We feel bad about the families of these two ladies,” the mayor said.
Butz said the shooting had no clear motive, but pointed out Figueroa had been working on the Inglewood campus for a short time as an unarmed security guard.
Butts added that the pistol believed to be used in the shooting was a vehicle of Figueroa and police planned to find weapons after obtaining a search warrant on Saturday. A 9mm shell shell was recycled on campus.
“This situation is very shocking for the community because it promotes a sense of randomness and threatens security,” Butts said. “It’s a college campus; there’s no reason you’ll have this kind of crime in school.”
The police spent more than an hour going to the campus room to look for suspects or other victims, but did not find anyone. Ingwood police said they cleaned up the campus around 5:15 p.m.
A student at the school told ABC7 News that he and his classmates were told to shelter in the campus building for about 90 minutes.
“Everyone has a fear at once, I just feel like we really don’t panic,” he told the station. “We really just have to keep calm, the police are doing their jobs here, we just don’t want to intervene, so I want everyone involved to be safe.”
Campus President Christopher Becker told ABC7 that campus and conventional safety drills, fire drills and earthquake drills have 24/7 safety.
“We are an aviation school, so safety is one of our most concerned things,” Becker told the media. “It’s a great community of students, teachers and staff. We all get along well and care deeply about each other, so it’s hard for all of us.”
