Eyewitness account of Halloween shooting

Rayamen Middlebrooks, 21, and Andre Shields, 20, two community college students from South Los Angeles, came to USC Wednesday night to attend “Freak or Greek” — an on-campus Halloween party — with some of their friends. Before they even made it into the event, however, they witnessed the shooting of four people.

Middlebrooks said they were waiting in a long line outside the Ronald Tutor Campus Center Ballroom when they heard the party was over capacity and the crowd started to turn hostile.

“As soon as they said that, we heard a lot of commotion,” Middlebrooks said. “A lot of people were arguing, and then five seconds later, all you hear is gunshots and everybody running.”

Shields and Middlebrooks ran away from Trousdale, when they saw one of the victims bleeding from a stomach wound. Shields said the victim’s friend helped him hobble over to a paramedic.

Though they did not expect their night to end with a shooting, Middlebrooks said he thought a confrontation might happen at the event based on the size of the crowd.

“From the beginning, I knew that that was how the crowd was, and things were gonna happen like this,” Middlebrooks said. “It was at least 500 people, and that was only outside.”

Even with the hectic crowd, though, Middlebrooks did not expect something as severe as a shooting.

“You just don’t think it was going to be shots fired on USC campus,” Middlebrooks said. “Gunshots on USC campus? Out of everywhere else? You just don’t think there are going to be gunshots on USC campus.”