Authorities said the shooting at Saugus High School that left two students dead and three wounded occurred over a 16-second period in which a classmate pulled out a gun in the quad area and opened fire.

The gunfire broke out at 7:30 a.m., when students at the school were scheduled to be in their first-period classes, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Paramedics rushed onto the campus, treating the wounded, and law enforcement officers searched nearby neighborhoods for a 16-year-old boy they thought had fled after the shooting. Authorities later said the suspect, identified by neighbors and sheriff’s officials as Nathaniel Berhow, was found on campus with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Officials said he was taken to a hospital and is in grave condition. Authorities said a message referencing the shooting, thought to have been posted before the attack, appeared on an Instagram account believed to be linked to the suspect. But Instagram said late Thursday, as first reported by BuzzFeed News, that the account didn’t belong to the teenager. A company representative said via email that the account has since been disabled “for violating our policies.”


Sheriff’s Capt. Kent Wegener said the teen was standing in the quad when he pulled a .45-caliber handgun from his backpack and opened fire on other students before turning the gun on himself. It was the suspect’s 16th birthday, authorities said.

The scene at the school at 21900 Centurion Way was chaotic, with teenagers walking in a line behind armed law enforcement officers with their arms raised in the air. Many of the injured were treated in a grassy area on campus before being placed on gurneys and taken to ambulances in the school’s parking lot.

Two students, a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, died after being taken to a hospital. A 15-year-old girl, a 14-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were being treated for their injuries. One of the teens, who was originally listed in good condition, was released from the hospital in the afternoon.

1 / 42 Sisters Isabella, 16, and Sophoia Esser, 12, hug Nov. 15 at Central Park in Santa Clarita. Their school remained closed a day after the shooting. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 42 Saugus High School freshman Haley Stuart hugs her family after placing flowers Nov. 15 at a memorial. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 42 Vicky Villarreal and Matthew Arauz, 16, pay their respects at a memorial at Central Park for the Saugus High School shooting. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 42 Hailey Stuart, a freshman at Saugus High School, and her sister Ashley place flowers at a memorial. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 42 Sheriff’s vehicles and deputies outside Saugus High School, which remained closed Nov. 15. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 42 Xavier Martinez hugs his son, Sebastian Martinez, 12, as people place flowers and pay their respects at a growing memorial at Central Park in Santa Clarita. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times) 7 / 42 Sebastian Martinez, 12, places a football at the memorial in Santa Clarita. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times) 8 / 42 Yvette Mojica, 16, a Saugus High School student who was in class at the time of the shooting and locked down for two hours, visits a makeshift memorial at Central Park. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 42 Tom, left, and Madlyn Gibson, whose children went to Saugus High School, prepare a ‘Saugus Strong’ banner to be placed near a makeshift memorial at Central Park for the victims of the shooting in Santa Clarita. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 42 Christine Hirst, a teacher in the school district, weeps at the makeshift memorial at Central Park for the victims of Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 42 Jessica Dumont, with her 1-year-old daughter, Juliana Sanchez, pays her respects at a memorial. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 42 Two mourners pay their respects at a memorial at Central Park for the victims of Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 42 Melissa Perez, with her dog, Bandit, offers prayers and respect Nov. 15 at a makeshift memorial at Central Park for the victims of Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 42 Dylan Reynoso, a 16-year-old Saugus High School student, is reunited with father Marco Reynoso, mother Yvonne and grandmother Angie Razo. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 42 Students are escorted by police from the Saugus High campus. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 42 Anna Fineberg with her mother, Jessica. The 14-year-old was among those evacuated from Saugus High School after Thursday’s shooting. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times) 17 / 42 Students are in tears while leaving the Saugus High campus. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 42 Students evacuated from Saugus High board buses to a reunification area at Central Park. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 42 Saugus High 10th-grader Ella Cabigting is hugged by her father, Emerson. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 42 Students are evacuated. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 42 Abraham Tovar, right, hugs fellow Saugus High student Katie Garibay as they join friends at the reunification area. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 42 Student Kiki Egetoe, 17, embraces her mom, Patty, and dad, Bob. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 42 Students evacuate. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 42 Students and family members leave Santa Clarita’s Central Park in the aftermath of the deadly shooting. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 42 Police officers escort groups of students away from Saugus High School. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 42 Police officers escort groups of students away from Saugus High. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 42 Laura Schooping-Medina, left, comforts daughter Hannah Schooping, center, and friend Lauren Farmer outside Saugus High. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 42 Students board a bus. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 42 An L.A. County sheriff’s deputy leads students from Saugus High. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 42 Parents are reunited with their children near Saugus High. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 42 Students are escorted from the campus. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 42 A mother and daughter embrace outside Saugus High. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 42 Police escort students as they board buses from Saugus High to a nearby park to be reunited with their parents. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 42 A sheriff’s deputy outside Saugus High. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 42 People gather for a “Night of Prayer” at Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita on Thursday night. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 42 The prayer vigil. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 42 People comfort one another. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 42 At church. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 42 An injured person is wheeled to an ambulance after Thursday’s shooting in Santa Clarita. (KTLA) 40 / 42 Two students were killed and three injured in the campus shooting. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 42 Police converge on a home in the 22000 block of Sycamore Creek Drive in Santa Clarita during the search for the shooter. (KTLA) 42 / 42 An aerial view of the exterior of Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. (KTLA)


Some students remained locked in classrooms for more than an hour amid the massive police presence. Eventually, they were led off the school grounds by deputies. Some were in tears. As they walked, one student asked aloud a question on the minds of many others: “What kind of a world is this?”

Andrei Mojica, 17, was in his AP government class going over a worksheet when his teacher went outside and saw people running. Nobody in class panicked; then somebody opened the door and said there was a shooter on campus. His heart sank.

In an instant, about 30 students in the class were up and barricading the doors with desks and tables. They’d practiced this before, but “there was just something different about it from a simple drill to real life,” Mojica said.


The students sat in silence and had a fire extinguisher they were prepared to use as a weapon if anyone came into the classroom. They didn’t hear any gunshots.

“We had no clue whether the shooter was on the opposite side of campus or right outside our door,” Mojica said. “That fear made it feel like we were waiting in silence forever.”

All schools in the William S. Hart Union High School District will be closed Friday, district officials said.

The schools were briefly locked down as authorities searched for the shooter. Deputies had been centering much of their focus on the brushy area behind the high school adjacent to a creek. Law enforcement officials also searched the backyards of homes along Sycamore Creek Drive. After about an hour, authorities determined the suspect hadn’t left campus.


At a park down the street from the school, a stream of parents — some sobbing, others glued to their phones — gathered. They had been directed there by law enforcement to be reunited with their children.

A helicopter overhead drowned out their crying, and sirens wailed. It was, by now, a familiar scene: Three weeks ago, officials and frantic Santa Clarita residents had come to this same park for a news conference during the Tick fire.

Nearby, a sheriff’s deputy gripping a large rifle asked a frantic woman whether she was a parent.


“Yes!” she said, sobbing. He pointed toward a group of parents and teens, standing in a clump.

Saugus High School student Kiki Egetoe, 17, embraces her mother, Patty, and father, Bob, at the family reunification area in Santa Clarita’s Central Park. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

One of the parents wrapped his arm over the shoulder of a teenage boy in a gray Saugus sweatshirt. The boy was hyperventilating and counting his breaths aloud.

“One, two, three,” he said. “One, two, three.”


“It’s over, son,” the man said. “It’s over.”

Michael Harrison, 26, said he first became aware of the shooting when his younger sister, a 17-year-old senior, texted him, “there is a shooter, call 911.”

“I can’t even describe it, man,” Harrison said with a panicked laugh. “Imagine getting that text.”

Kimberly Simpson, 30, stood across the street from Saugus High’s main entrance, where dozens of emergency vehicles and sheriff’s deputies in tactical gear had flooded the street, some parking in private driveways. One deputy could be heard telling a parent that law enforcement was conducting a “systematic search” to clear all the classrooms.


Simpson’s 15-year-old daughter, a junior, was in class Thursday morning when a teacher ordered students to do what they had drilled for, referring to lockdown procedures.

Saugus High School students are reunited with their parents at a nearby park after the campus shooting. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

“She’s freaked out. She’s scared,” Simpson said. “I don’t know if she’s going to want to go back.”

Anthony Breznican, 43, had just dropped off his daughter and son at elementary school when his wife alerted him to news of a shooter at nearby Saugus High. Breznican sprinted back to North Park Elementary, where parents began piling into the lobby as details emerged.


“You’ve got kids in little Pilgrim outfits planning to do their Thanksgiving pageant today walking out in tears,” Breznican said.

His 10-year-old daughter burst into tears as she told him that a kid had hurt people at Saugus High School. Although residents say Santa Clarita is an idyllic place, Breznican said it hasn’t been untouched by violence. Some members of the community were killed in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre. Others had friends affected by last year’s Thousand Oaks shooting.

Thursday’s shooting came two months after six students at the high school were detained on felony charges after authorities were alerted to threats the teenagers had made online. A Hart Union staff member discovered the social media posts “regarding committing acts of school violence” and alerted authorities, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives quickly determined who had made the posts, according to the agency. Villanueva said the threats were not connected to Thursday’s events.


Off-duty personnel were the first to respond to the shooting, Villanueva said. A deputy with the Santa Clarita station had dropped off a family member at the school and was driving away when he saw children running. He turned around, the sheriff said.

An Inglewood police officer and a Los Angeles Police Department officer, both off duty, also rushed the scene, Villanueva said.

Officials said a search warrant was served at what they believe is the suspect’s home.

Brooke Hougo, 18, was getting ready to leave for school, which is two streets from her home, when she heard a boy pounding on her door.


“There’s a shooter. Can you please let me in?” he screamed. “I need shelter.”

Soon, word began to spread about the suspect, and Hougo learned it was a boy she runs cross-country with. The two have talked before but never discussed anything in depth about their lives, she said. That day, they would have had second period together: AP psychology.

“I would have never expected anything like this,” she said. “He was just a quiet kid.”

Times staff writers Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Colleen Shalby, Leila Miller and Ruben Vives contributed to this report.