A gunman opened fire inside a private university in Oakland, killing at least two people and injuring six, authorities said.
The shooting happened at Oikos University, a Christian school, at 7850 Edgewater Road about 10:33 a.m., said Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson. Watson said authorities detained a suspect, but not would disclose if the suspect was a student.
Outside the building, tarps covered what appeared to be four bodies, and rescue workers removed at least four more victims on gurneys. KTVU was reporting that five people were confirmed dead.
Highland Hospital officials said the trauma center was treating four victims from the shooting.
At the scene, students continued evacuating the building more than an hour after the shooting. Police, including members of the SWAT unit, had taken positions around the building and officers smashed in glass doors with sledgehammers and rushed into the building in the moments after the shooting as police evacuated students and searched for the gunman.
Angie Johnson, 52, of San Leandro, said she was doing errands in the industrial complex when she saw a young woman leaving the building with blood coming from her arm and crying, "I've been shot, I've been shot."
Johnson said while she waited for medical attention the woman told her the shooter was a man in her nursing class who rose up and shot one person at point blank range in the chest before he started spraying the room with bullets.
"She said he looked crazy all the time," Johnson said the victim told her, "But they never knew how far he would go."
Johnson said the victim "had a hole in her right arm the size of a silver dollar with blood coming down."
According to its website, Oikos is an independent Korean school that offers undergraduate courses in biblical studies, ministry, nursing and music, among other degrees.
The school does not show up on the U.S. Department of Education's list of accredited schools.
But the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education has approved the school to teach seven degree-granting programs: bachelors degrees in biblical studies and music; masters in divinity, music and Asian medicine, a doctorate in ministry, and an associates degree in nursing.
Its website says the school trains men and women "for Christian leadership, both lay and clerical." It's not clear how many students attend the school, or the size of its faculty.
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