BERKELEY (BCN/KRON) — A University of California at Berkeley student suffered minor injuries in a shooting that occurred on campus early Monday morning, according to UC Berkeley police.
Around 12:20 a.m., a group of eight students were sitting and standing on the steps of the school’s International House building at the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Bancroft Way, police said.
The group noticed a person standing across the street holding what appeared to be a gun. The suspect then began shooting toward the building, causing the students to run inside, according to police.
One of the students was injured during the shooting and was taken to a hospital, police said.
The student injured never saw the suspect, said Berkeley Police Department Sgt. Andrew Frankel.
“He saw a white car approaching,” Frankel said. “He saw the passenger window go down, heard three loud bangs, then felt pain in his chest.”
After a preliminary investigation, officers determined the gun used was possibly a pellet or BB gun. Witnesses also told police a second male suspect may have been in the area setting off fireworks.
Officers searched the area but were unable to find the suspects, according to police.
The BB gun shootings have some students on edge including Samantha Cox-Parra.
“There’s been a lot of just violence happening against Cal students in generalrecently whether it’s abroad or here, and to hear about a BB gun so close to home just adds to the tension going on,” Cox-Parra said.
The first suspect who shot at the group was described as a black male about 6 feet tall wearing a dark gray or black hooded sweatshirt and black pants. The second suspect was described as a black male wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, police said.
Around the same time, a similar incident occurred at the nearby intersection of Channing Way and Ellsworth Street, according to Berkeley police spokesman Sgt. Andrew Frankel.
In that incident, a person in a car shot at another person, striking them in the back, possibly with a BB or pellet gun, police said.
The victim declined medical attention, according to Frankel.
The suspect in that shooting was described as a black man about 6 feet tall who was wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and drove a white four-door vehicle, Frankel said.