LAPD detained dozens but missed the Northridge shooter's trail
By Daniel Okafor · Reporting from New York ·
LAPD detained dozens of people after a shooting at University Plaza left two dead, but the department's focus on mass detention over immediate pursuit let the gunman escape.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to a loud party and ended up with dozens of handcuffs but no suspect. Two people died in a shooting at University Plaza on Friday night. The LAPD is wrong to treat a crowd of witnesses as a group of suspects. By prioritizing the containment of a crowd over the pursuit of a killer, the department let the gunman vanish.
A party at the plaza
The shooting broke out just after 11 p.m. The location was an artist's lounge in a strip mall on Nordhoff Street. NBC Los Angeles said the victims were a man and a woman. Both died at the scene.
The New York Post reported that one person was stabbed during the incident. Law enforcement believes one other person may have been struck by gunfire. Police could not locate that person. Cellphone video shows partygoers panicking and fleeing after the gunfire. This panic mirrored the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where gunfire in a crowded area caused mass flight.
LAPD used a blunt instrument
The LAPD arrived at the scene at about 11:30 p.m. ABC7 Los Angeles said officers heard gunshots upon their arrival. Instead of a tactical pursuit, the police lined up dozens of people in handcuffs. They escorted these individuals out of the lounge.
The LAPD would argue that mass detention was a necessary tactical choice. They would say that in a crowd of panicking partygoers, a shooter can blend in and vanish in seconds. They would claim that cuffing everyone ensures no suspect leaves the perimeter.
This logic fails because the officers heard the shots as they arrived. They had the timing and the location. They chose to process a crowd instead of pursuing a killer.
The campus fringe
This event shares the mechanism of the 2023 Ohio State University shooting. Violence erupted at a location immediately adjacent to a university campus. At Ohio State, an attacker struck Watts Hall and caused 13 people to be hospitalized.
The University Plaza strip mall sits one block from the California State University Northridge campus. These zones create a volatile mix of high-density youth populations and public commercial spaces. When a shooter strikes these fringes, the proximity to the campus accelerates the panic. The LAPD failed to account for this movement. They focused on the lounge while the shooter used the campus perimeter to escape.
What is the cost of control?
The department now has dozens of detainees and no suspect description. This is a failure of intelligence. Handcuffs are not a substitute for a perimeter. The police secured the scene but they did not secure the shooter.
Police will likely release the detained individuals without charges within 48 hours. This matches the 2019 mass detention following a Boyle Heights warehouse party shooting in Los Angeles. In that case, law enforcement questioned dozens of attendees but released most within two days due to conflicting statements.
The LAPD used a blunt instrument to solve a precise problem. They traded the chance of a capture for the appearance of control. The victims are dead, the shooter is gone, and the handcuffs are empty.