USC Students Recount the Shooting at 37th Place

LAPD and the FBI are investigating a shooting that occurred at an off-campus party near USC early Sunday morning, where two students were wounded.

ATVN Sports Reporter Carol Ciriaco, a sophomore at USC majoring in communication, was at the party on West 37th Place at the time of the shooting and described the chaos.

"There was a guy standing by the door who turned off the music, and then some girl started yelling for everyone to get out," Ciriaco said. "The lights went on and then gun went off."

The sophomore said approximately 100 students were fit inside the small apartment, and that the gunshots created mass chaos and screaming that was almost inescapable.

"It mostly happened in a minute," Ciriaco said. "The atmosphere in the room changed so quickly."

She and her friend barricaded themselves in a room in the apartment, then knocked a screen out of a window in order to escape.

Seniors Nathaniel Gonzalez and Long Jiao, residents of the apartment complex, returned home around 2 a.m. Sunday, right after the shooting occured. Jiao said that the party in question was the first big party anyone in the apartment complex had held since the school year begun.

"We heard a lot of people running outside and running out the door," Gonzalez said. "People didn't understand what was going on."

Gonzalez said he knew there were security cameras in the building, and he expected something to happen during the year, but nothing of this magnitude.

"I didn't really understand what it meant for someone to get shot at my place next door," Gonzalez said.

Ciriaco also said she didn't expect something like this to happen so close to campus.

"It's ridiculous how much we are paying to go to USC for something like this to happen at a student's apartment," Ciriaco said. "It's not like we went to some sketchy place, they've increased the number of yellow jackets there."

Video shot by Alexis Zotos.