USC's "open campus" questioned after shooting

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As of 4:00 p.m. Thursday, police had two suspects in custody in connection with last night's shooting at the center of USC's campus. At least one of them will be charged with attempted murder, police said today.

One victim who was in critical condition last night has been moved to fair condition, California Hospital Medical Center confirmed.

Geno Hall who was the target of the shooting outside the Tutor Campus Center. The City News Service has reported that he was shot seven times but is expected to survive. Three other victims were treated for non life-threatening wounds. One, Davonte Smith, is also in fair condition. The other two victims are stable.

A gunman opened fire at 11:35 p.m. Wednesday on USC's Trousdale Parkway. The victims were in line for a Halloween party taking place inside the Campus Center.

"There was a large group of students and guests that had spilled out onto Trousdale Parkway waiting to get into the event. Then, at about 11:35 or shortly thereafter, there were a number of gunshots fired," said USC Department of Public Safety Captain David Carlisle. "Fortunately, we were able to broadcast a radio description of one of the suspects and one of our DPS officers saw them and was actually able to detain the suspects who matched the description. We called LAPD for assistance and they were able to detain both of those suspects in this shooting."

DPS estimates that there were about 200 students outside.

After 13 minutes, officers caught the suspects. Text and email messages sent to students at 11:59 p.m. asked them to seek shelter and wait for further information.

LAPD restricted the shooting area as a crime scene, but an email at 2:29 a.m. declared campus open to students, faculty and staff with university IDs. About two hours later, campus was fully open.

Classes resumed as normal this morning.

"We appreciate being an open campus. We don't have a big barbed-wire fence around this campus. We like people being able to come and appreciate what USC has to offer. One of the downsides is, sometimes you get people coming to campus like this person who brought a gun," Carlisle said.

That conversation about an open campus continues today.

"Safety isn't in defining who is them and who is us, you know, and if we could only protect ourselves from them, then things would be safe. No," said Susan Stouffer, director of the Peace Center at USC's United University Church. "To me, the problems are systemic ones, and gun violence, I believe, is a huge issue. I don't think we can wall ourselves off from the problem, as if the problem is only out there and in the neighborhood."

For continuing updates, follow @atvn, @annenbergradio and @dailytrojan. ATVN contributed extensively to this report.