In costumes of the Three Blind Mice for Halloween night, Simone St. Claire wore black glasses, canes and ears on their heads.

Approximately 100 people tried to get into the party at Ronald Tutor Campus Center. Simone St. Claire is a USC freshman from Northern California.

"People were just having fun, walking around introducing themselves," she said.

But around 11:45 p.m. -- as St. Claire and her friends waited outside in line -- gunshots rang out in the crowd, not far from the university's iconic Tommy Trojan statue. Four people were wounded, and the campus was placed on lockdown.

"I didn't know if it was real or if it was a Halloween gun or something," said the 18-year old French major who is also enrolled in a pre-med program. She said that as she heard the gunshots, people yelled, "Get down!" and someone pushed her to the ground.

"I have bruises on my knees," she said Thursday afternoon, wearing a gray USC sweatshirt.

The man shot was bleeding from a gunshot wound to his stomach.

"He was laying down on the grass, bleeding," she said.

 “No one calls at 2 o’clock in the morning with good news,” Don St. Claire, Simone's father said.

The incident, he said, was "very disturbing, particularly since she was right in the mix of everything."

As traumatic as the event was, she pleaded with her father : "Please don't tell me you're going to make me transfer."

He won't, he responded’; however the university could have prevented the incident.

"I don't expect, nor would I want a locked-down campus where everyone walks through metal detectors to get on and off campus," he said. "I’m disturbed by it, but I'm also a little bit of a loss at what could have been done differently."

Still, Simone said she is leaving Friday evening to go home for the weekend.

"My parents realized I needed to get away," she said.

The shooting victims and suspected gunman were not USC students but were on campus apparently trying to get into the Halloween party in the student center. The violence sprang from an argument between two of them, police said.