Investigators on Friday were working to figure out why a student opened fire at his Southern California high school on his sixteenth birthday, killing two students and injuring three others before shooting himself in the head.
“Detectives have worked through the night going through each and every crime tip/ screenshot received from our community members regarding our area schools,” said a tweet from the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s office Friday morning.
The suspected gunman, identified by multiple law enforcement officers as Nathaniel Tennosuke Berhow, pulled a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol from his backpack in the quad area of Saugus High School and opened fire, according to officials. The entire shooting, which was carried out at about 7:30 a.m. before classes began Thursday, lasted 16 seconds.
“At this point in time, we have no indication of motivation or ideology,” Paul Delacourt, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Thursday night.
The suspect was in critical condition following the shooting while two of his victims, 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, died. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner identified the female victim as Gracie Muehlberger, while it worked to identify the identity of the male victim.
One wounded victim was released from the hospital Thursday night, while a 14-year-old girl and 15-year-old girl who were shot remained hospitalized Friday, but were expected to be released in coming days.
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The shooter and all of the victims were Saugus students, but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide Capt. Kent Wegener said the gunman had no known connection to the teens he shot and appears to have fired at random.
Detectives searched the suspect’s home in Santa Clarita, about 35 miles outside of Los Angeles, and interviewed his mother and girlfriend.
Authorities told NBC Los Angeles that they found other guns in the home, but it’s unclear who they belonged to.
Berhow’s father, Mark Berhow, and mother, Mami Matsuura, were in the midst of a custody battle in 2016, according to a court filing in Los Angeles county. Prior to that, Mark Berhow had been arrested during a domestic dispute with Matsuura, The Associated Press reported.
Law enforcement sources told NBC Los Angeles that Mark Berhow was detained for a mental health evaluation at the time of the custody hearings, and following the evaluation, deputies seized firearms from the home.
The following year, Mark Berhow died of a heart attack, according to an online obituary that said he was survived by his wife, his son, Nathaniel, and a daughter.
The church where Mark Berhow’s funeral was held hosted a service Thursday night for the victims of the shooting, according to a Facebook post.
“His father died very recently. So apparently he had a lot of stress from that,” neighbor Tom Morreale told NBC Los Angeles.
But fellow students said Berhow was a Boy Scout, who was smart and quiet, had not been bullied and showed no signs that he would become violent.
“He always had a smile on his face,” another neighbor, Jacob Labrie, said.
Wegener said Thursday that the sheriff’s department had not received any recent calls to the boy’s house “that would indicate that there was turmoil” there.
All of the schools in Saugus’ William S. Hart Union High School District were closed Friday, but counselors would be available for students and staff at a nearby church, according to a statement from deputy superintendent Mike Kuhlman.
“I know our entire school community shares my profound sadness and disbelief,” Kuhlman said in the statement. “Hold your children tight. Love them. Praise them for being responsible in the face of fear.”
Associated Press contributed.