THE DEATH TOLL from yesterday’s college shooting spree in California now stands at seven killed, as authorities arrested a former student of the Christian university.
One L Goh, 43, surrendered an hour after the rampage at Oikos University in Oakland. Police said he opened fire at the college, sparking a chaotic manhunt before giving himself up at a local shopping centre.
“It’s going to take us a few days to put the pieces together,” police chief Howard Jordan said. “We do not have a motive.”
Police first received a 911 call at 10:33 am reporting a woman on the ground bleeding. As more calls came in from the school, the first arriving officer found a victim suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound, he said.
More officers arrived and formed a perimeter around the school. ”Potential victims remained inside the building either trapped by a locked door which officers were unable to open,” Jordan said. Others were unable to flee because they were injured, he said.
Jordan said there were about 35 people in or near the building when gunfire broke out. Of the seven fatalities, five died at the scene and another two at the hospital. The wounded victims are in stable condition, and at least one person has been released from the hospital.
“This unprecedented tragedy was shocking and senseless,” Jordan said.
Art Richards said he was driving by the university on his way to pick up a friend when he spotted a woman hiding in the bushes and pulled over. When he approached her, she said, “I’m shot” and showed him her arm.
“She had a piece of her arm hanging out,” Richards said, noting that she was wounded near the elbow. The female victim told him that she saw the gunman shoot one person point-blank in the chest and one in the head.
This CNN video taken before Koh’s arrest shows the aftermath of the shooting:
YouTube/MegaMrBeautiful
At Highland Hospital, Dawinder Kaur’s family told the Oakland Tribune that she was being treated for a gunshot to her elbow.
The 19-year-old US Army reservist told her family that the gunman was a student in her nursing class who had been absent for months before returning Monday. The gunman entered the classroom and ordered students to line up against the wall.
When he showed his gun, students began running and he opened fire, her family said.
Television footage showed bloodied victims on stretchers being loaded into ambulances. Several bodies covered in sheets were laid out on a patch of grass at the school. One body could be seen being loaded into a van.
Those connected to the school, including the founder and several students, described the gunman as a former nursing student. The chief said Goh is a South Korean national who’s a former student of the university.
A call to the Korean consulate in San Francisco went unanswered Monday.
The suspect’s brother was killed in a car accident last year in Virginia while on active duty in the US Army, according to Stars and Stripes newspaper.
- Additional reporting by Michael Freeman
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