UC Berkeley police detained a shooter, and no one was injured, at Lower Sproul Plaza Friday.
There was some sort of “altercation” in the area and afterward, one person “produced a weapon and shot several rounds into the air at approximately 8:40 p.m.,” according to a prepared statement on UC Berkeley’s news page.
UC Police Department officers “were already en route to the altercation, and the suspect was quickly detained at 8:41,” according to the statement. A university spokesperson also said the shooter was in custody within a minute of the gunshots.
University officials were not immediately able to provide information as to the identity of the person arrested, the type of firearm used or whether there were any injuries to the officers who responded, but a spokesperson did say the shooter was a 59-year-old man who was “not affiliated with the campus” and that he is expected to “be booked on several charges including possession of a loaded firearm and negligent discharge of a firearm.”
David Zhang, a UC Berkeley student, told KTVU that the shooting happened during a club dance practice on campus.
“In the middle of our practice session this person, who I believe is the suspect, came in and was asking for a USB charger,” Zhang said. “And then I guess the club organizers were trying to direct the person elsewhere. But I guess it started to escalate.”
A WarnMe email message from the university advised students and other recipients that there had been an aggravated assault in the area of Lower Sproul Plaza. Around 9:52 p.m., there was a second email message, advising that a suspect had been arrested and lifted the shelter-in-place.
It is unclear if the timing of the first message, roughly a half-hour after the incident, is related to an outage at a campus data center announced earlier this week.
This story will be updated as Berkeleyside gets more details.
