UC Davis police officers shot and killed a man on the main campus tonight after the man fired first at the officers.
Police said at an 8 p.m. news conference that three officers were responding at 5:06 p.m. to a report of a suspicious person. When the officers walked toward the man, he brandished a handgun and fired at them. The officers returned fire. Paramedics responded, but the suspect died at the scene.
The area where the shooting occurred is in the north-central part of the main campus in Davis, among many buildings containing student residence halls, dining rooms and student-housing administrative offices. The man was standing immediately outside the student housing office.
Police said only that the man appeared to be 18 to 20 years old. They did not give his name or say if he was a student or another member of the UC Davis community. They said they were interviewing several eyewitnesses but did not say if the witnesses were students.
The officers involved in the shooting were not identified. UC Davis Police Chief Calvin Handy said they have been placed on administrative leave while an investigation is conducted, which is routine in cases when an officer fires his or her weapon.
Handy said a three-tiered investigation is under way by the UC Davis Police Department, the Yolo County District Attorney's Office and the Yolo County Critical Incident Response Team. The California Department of Justice is assisting UC Davis police with scene reconstruction.
"The campus is safe. We believe this is an isolated situation," Handy said.
UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef went to the scene as soon as he was told of the shooting. "We want our students and their parents to know that we're doing everything we can to make sure the students are getting the counseling they need and all the information they need," he said at the news conference.
Police said this was the only officer-involved shooting death that has occurred on the UC Davis campus.
In August 1998, the body of a farm worker, Jose Reyes of Dixon, was discovered on the northern bank of Putah Creek, which is the southern boundary of the UC Davis campus. Two men with no connection to UC Davis were later tried for the murder.
In January 1985, physics lecturer Fred Morris was bludgeoned to death in a campus men's room. Four days later, staff physician Michael Corbett was killed the same way in a men's room at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, and a medical student was beaten but survived. A suspect was convicted of murder in those deaths.
In September 1977, a man shot a married couple living in campus student housing at Orchard Park. The husband died.