Active Shooter Situation Shuts Down L.A. County Polling Place on Election Day

An active shooting near a Los Angeles County polling place on Tuesday has left one person dead and at least three others wounded.

Police in Azusa, Calif., were dealing with at least one heavily armed female suspect, although the Los Angeles Times reports that witnesses have said the shooter was a man.

“This is an active situation,” Azusa Police Chief Steve Hunt told the Times, adding that it was too early to tell whether the shooting was related to the election or not.

“It’s very early to tell what the motive is, but it appears to be concentrated on the residential side, not at the polling place,” Hunt added.

A law-enforcement source told the Times that at least one of the victims was headed to the polling place when the shooting happened.

The shooting began at about 2 p.m. local time, Hunt said. Officers arrived on the scene and found multiple shooting victims and a suspect armed with a rifle. Hunt said that the suspect was armed with an assault rifle with “rapid fire capability,” but police don’t know if the rifle was fully or semi-automatic.

A source told the Times that the shooter fired at least 20 shots at police when they arrived. When officers returned fire, the shooter retreated into a nearby home. No officers were injured in the shooting.

“After the initial exchange of gunfire, there were victims down at the scene,” Hunt said. “We had to extract them from the scene.”

Police had the shooter surrounded and evacuated the immediate area.

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan told the Times that the shooting affected two polling locations. Logan urged voters to avoid the area and “if necessary, cast a ballot at an alternate polling location.”

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.