A picture of the suspect entering Santa Monica College Library is seen
as Jacqueline Seabrook, Chief of Santa Monica Police department speaks
during a news conference Saturday June 8, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif.,
to discuss more information regarding the suspect in the shooting that
left five people dead, including the shooter, near Santa Monica College
on Friday. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 8 (Reuters) - The gunman who
killed four people in a shooting rampage in Santa Monica before he was slain by
police at a community college in the California seaside town was once a student
there and had a brush with the law several years ago as a teenager, police said
on Saturday.
Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks also revealed
that several students at the college survived Friday's shootings by hiding in
an interior room of the library and piling up heavy objects against the door as
the gunman fired through the walls at them.
This photo provided by the Santa Monica Police Department shows the
suspect entering Santa Monica College Library carrying a weapon, Friday,
June 7, 2013 in Santa Monica, Calif., The gunman who went on a chaotic
rampage killing four people before being fatally shot by police at a
college campus planned the attack and was capable of firing 1,300 rounds
of ammunition, the police chief said Saturday. (AP Photo/Santa Monica
Police Department)
Seabrooks detailed how the gunman, after killing two people
identified by a law enforcement source as his father and brother and apparently
setting their house on fire, went on to carjack a woman's automobile, ordering
her at gunpoint to drive him from place to place as he fired at other
individuals.
That woman escaped unharmed, police said.
But two other people died - one of them a college employee
shot while driving a sport utility vehicle in a school parking lot, and the
other a woman gunned down outside the library at Santa Monica College.
A second woman who was a passenger in the SUV was gravely
wounded, and Seabrooks described her prognosis on Saturday as "very
grim." Authorities reported four other people who suffered less serious
wounds, including a woman struck by gunfire in her car outside the burning
house.
Police have disclosed little about the gunman or his
motives, although the police chief said the suspect was carrying an estimated
1,300 rounds of ammunition with him at the time.
Seabrooks said the suspect would have turned 24 on Saturday,
but she declined to reveal his identity, saying authorities wanted first to
notify members of his family, who were out of the country. She acknowledged he
had a "familial connection" to the scene of the house fire.
The Los Angeles Times cited several law enforcement sources
in Washington and Los Angeles in identifying the gunman as John Zawahri.
The newspaper cited other anonymous law enforcement sources
as saying the suspect, who was believed to have lived with his mother, had
suffered from mental-health problems in the past and was angry over his
parents' divorce.
Seabrooks said the gunman was enrolled in the college,
possibly along with a family member, as recently as 2010, and she cited a
previous instance in which he had "contact" with law enforcement as a
juvenile in 2006. She declined to elaborate.
The Los Angeles County coroner's department identified one
of the four dead as Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, of west Los Angeles. He was the
SUV driver shot in the staff parking lot.
BEGAN WITH GUNSHOTS AT HOUSE
Police say the carnage began shortly before noon when they
received reports of gunshots at a house east of the college and arrived to find
it engulfed in flames and two people dead inside.
A woman also was found slightly wounded by gunfire in a car
outside the house.
By then, the gunman had fled the scene and commandeered the
car of another woman, forcing her to drive him across town to the college as
fired at a city bus, wounding three people, and later shooting Franco and his
passenger.
The woman, identified by the Los Angeles Times as Laura
Sisk, 41, told the newspaper she pleaded with the gunman to take the car
without her, but he insisted: "No. You're driving."
She recounted that even though she was shaking with fear and
crying, the suspect remained calm and said little after ordering her to drive
to the college.
Source : Huffingtonpost
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