3 Dead In Shooting At SJSU Parking Garage
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- Police were investigating a shooting at a San Jose State University parking garage that left three people dead, including the suspected gunman, as a murder-suicide.
Campus police said the victims and suspect in Tuesday night's shooting knew each other and it was not random.
Campus police received a report of the shooting in the 10th Street Garage—located at South 10th and East San Fernando streets—at 8:37 p.m., Sgt. John Laws said. The six-story structure also houses the school's student services center.
KCBS' Chris Filippi Reports:
Police said two people were pronounced dead at the scene. The third died at a hospital.
The names of the people who died have not been released, and campus spokeswoman Pat Lopes-Harris declined to comment on a possible motive for the shooting or whether any of the three were students.
The garage was closed for several hours after the shooting, but at least partially reopened shortly after midnight, she said.
The San Jose Police Department was assisting with the investigation, and sent two homicide detectives and a crime scene investigator to the university Tuesday night, police spokesman Officer Jose Garcia said.
School officials said students on the rest of the SJSU campus were never in danger.
"We quickly assessed whether the campus at large was threatened, and whether our neighboring communities were at threat," said Lopes-Harris. "But we were fairly certain early on that this was a very contained event."
KCBS' Mike Colgan & Matt Bigler Report:
Meanwhile, some San Jose State students want to know why they were not notified about the shooting through the university's emergency alert system until hours later.
The university did use its PA system to alert students on campus that they were safe. That was followed by text, phone and email messages. But San Jose State student Christophe Reader said he didn't get any of those.
"I am part of the emergency alert system, but I didn't get an alert, and I don't think any of my roommates got an alert, and I live with five guys," said Reader.
Senior Sarah Steward said that she did get a text alert, but it wasn't until after midnight, and it was just to notify students that the garage had reopened.
"If they're putting an emergency system in place to protect the students, they should probably let us know what's going on when there is an emergency," said Steward.
Lopes-Harris, however, said the system did function properly, although they will be looking into the speed at which it was activated.
"Our top priority was attending to the victims and ensuring that we provided all the medical attention that we could," said Lopes-Harris.
Many students said they first learned what had happened through social networking sites.
Freshman Cindy Baez said she found out about the shooting through her Facebook news feed. "People were talking about it on Facebook," Baez said.
Baez, who lives off-campus, said she received an email and text notification from the university that the garage had been reopened but that the message mentioned nothing about a shooting.
Baez's friend, Lupita Barragan, also a freshman, said she hadn't received any word from the school.
"People are always on their phones," Barragan said. "It would have been nice to send a text message or something."
Carmen Shiu, a junior, said she understands that the school wanted to be careful not to send out inaccurate information, but she would have wanted to know sooner.
"I'm not surprised that I found out on Twitter first, but I was just kind of shocked because the news said they sent out text messages," Shiu said. "How come I didn't get it?"
Junior Jennifer Cardona said she received a text message with few details.
"That makes me mad. They should have let us know," Cardona said, adding that she didn't want to come to school today and was concerned about the safety of her 4-year-old daughter, whom she dropped off at an on-campus child care center Wednesday morning.
Tristan Coleman, also a junior, said a friend notified him about the shooting as he was driving to the campus to study Tuesday night.
He said he didn't feel any less safe at school Wednesday.
"For the most part it's a safe campus. They can't prevent everything," Coleman said.
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