Update: Suspect Identified ~ Santa Monica College Shootings

Santa Monica College's gunman has been identified as 23-year-old John Zawahri, a former student at the college. Police said he had prepared with an arsenal of weapons and ammunition.

This is his high school photo. Source.

Zawahri enters Santa Monica College.

The shooting suspect first killed his father and brother before moving on to engage in random shootings on his way to Santa Monica College's library to have his own life ended in a "suicide by cop" exchange.

President Obama was three miles away when a shooting began at Santa Monica Community College, west of Los Angeles, on Friday, June 7, 2013. (Above, President Obama is shown arriving in California earlier.)

A man dressed in black walked onto the Santa Monica College campus, dressed all in black and paramilitary, with an assault weapon. Several shots were fired at women, at passing cars, and at a bus near campus. Reportedly two people were killed, also near campus, in a house that was set on fire.

The suspect was killed.

Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said the shooter was killed on the campus of Santa Monica College after attempting to evade police responding to multiple shootings that began about a mile from the school. Seabrooks said that two people were dead in a home in Yorkshire Avenue that was ablaze about a mile from campus. Another person died on Cloverfield Boulevard, and two were killed on 19th and Pearl streets. Another woman later died in the hospital, Seabrooks said.

The dead body of the suspect, who looked like he was a SWAT member, was seen by several eyewitnesses in the campus library.

At midnight, on Friday, police revised the number of people killed in the shooting rampage in Santa Monica, California, to four deaths plus one dead gunman.  All the victims were from shots of a lone gunman. The next day, another victim died. Five dead, plus the gunman. Six dead, in total.

The gunman died on the campus of Santa Monica College after being shot by police.

Sgt. Richard Lewis of the Santa Monica Police Department added that five people were injured, one is in critical condition and one is in serious but stable condition.

One witness to the shooting who was not identified told a local CNN affiliate that he saw a man drive up in a car, walk into the middle of an intersection with a gun and open fire at passing vehicles and a building before "he jumped back in the car and took off."

"It seemed like he was alone in his car," the witness said, recounting that he took cover under the dashboard of his own car, which was struck by gunfire. "I saw him jumping out of the car. He had a big, black gun in his hand and he just started blasting maybe 10 rounds from the left to the right."

Obama was attending a fundraising event at the Santa Monica home of former News Corp President Peter Chernin at about the time of the shooting and had just finished his remarks, but he made no mention of the incident.

A Secret Service spokesman in Washington said: "We are aware of the incident and it is not impacting the visit. It's a local police matter at this point."

Santa Monica College also had a gunfire incident on that campus on August 16, 2011.

Seven Dead in Oikos Shooting + Five Hurt in Mississippi Shooting

A gunman opened fire at a Christian university in California Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding three more, authorities said. Police say they have a suspect in custody. The university has identified the alleged shooter as a former nursing student at the school. 

Late in the day, he was specifically named as One L. Goh, 43 (shown above, being arrested).  He reportedly had pulled a gun, lined up 5 students, and shot them. He then tried to repeat the action with another set of 5 students, but killed two and wounded the other three. Most of the students killed were women.

Authorities earlier described the gunman as a heavyset Korean man in his 40s wearing khaki clothing. "I can confirm that we do have one person who has been detained that we believe is possibly responsible for this shooting," Watson said.

Police said a suspect had been arrested at Alameda's South Shore Center, outside the Safeway store, where he apparently asked store employees to be arrested.

Lisa Resler, 41, said she was leaving the Alameda store with her daughter when she saw a young Asian man with a beanie being confronted by store security. She described him as being "very sedated" as he was handcuffed and taken away.

Two Safeway employees who did not give their names said the suspect had told a customer service staffers that he had shot people and needed to be arrested.

KTVU-TV reported that the shooter was a student and opened fire in a classroom.

First reports told of police responding on Monday April 2, 2012, to reports of at least five people hurt in a shooting at a Christian university in east Oakland, California. The school is located at 7850 Edgewater Road. The shooting happened at Oikos University. 

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, at least five ambulances were called and SWAT teams were taking position. It was unclear at first if anyone of the victims were fatally shot.

Television news footage showed wounded people have been brought out of the building, and more gurneys were being brought in. Officers surrounded the building, and it was unclear if the suspect was still on scene.

Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune that he heard about 30 gunshots in the building. "I stayed in my office," he said.

Oakland police did not immediately return calls.

According of its website, Oikos University offers studies in theology, music, nursing and Asian medicine. 

According to its website, Oikos is a Christian university that "was established specifically to serve the community of Northern California in general and San Francisco and Oakland areas in particular. Oikos University was launched to provide highest standard education with Christian value and inspiration."

"Oikos University has a very specific goal and mission to offer education programs in the area of religious studies, music, and vocational nursing in that we motivate, educate and equip students in such a way that they will be able to live enriched life by fulfilling their goals in life and serve the community with their learned professions and skills," the website said.

An oikos (ancient Greek: οἶκος, plural: οἶκοι) is the ancient Greek equivalent of a household, house, or family.

In Ancient Greek literature, the nature of the oikos was prevalent, and indeed, the cornerstone of this ancient society. However, in the 5th century B.C., ancient Greek writers orientated the nature of the oikos with the polis (the city state); the conflict between these two was addressed in Greek Tragic theatre. The conflicting interests with both the oikos and polislead to the structural decay of the society.

An oikos was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states, and included the head of the oikos (usually the oldest male), his extended family (wife and children), and slaves living together in one domestic setting. Large oikoi also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the ancient economy.

The Greek oikos differed significantly from the Roman domus in architectural layout, although Greece became part of the Roman Empire for a long time. It was built around paved peristyles and had very distinct male and female spaces.

The first part of the house consisted of a "gynaeconite" (γυναικωνίτης, "women's gallery"), or peristyle (περιστύλιον), with the oikos proper, the center of domestic activity, beyond. This latter area consisted of bedrooms and dining rooms. The second part of the house, the "andronites" (ἀνδρωνίτης, pl. ἀνδρωνίται), was the locus of male activity. There one could find more dining rooms, guest suites, and libraries.
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There also was another shooting on Monday, in Mississippi.

Five people were shot also on April 2, 2012, on Monday afternoon when a man walked into Hattiesburg, Mississippi's Cucos Mexican Cafe and Cantina off U.S. 49 and opened fire at random.

Hattiesburg police received the call at 3:31 p.m. and responded to the scene. All five victims were immediately transported to Forrest General Hospital. Forrest County coroner Butch Benedict said no fatalities had been reported from the shooting as of Monday night.

Scott Tyner (above), a 44-year-old Hattiesburg resident, has been charged with five counts of aggravated assault in the shooting.

“It seems to be random,” Hattiesburg police Lt. EricProulx said Monday afternoon. “He walked in and started shooting. There was no exchange of words.”

The restaurant has been owned by couple Ricardo and Trish Mussiett for five years, and Trish was in the dining area when the shooting took place.

“It was so loud,” Trish Mussiett said. “I fell to the floor and prayed he didn’t see or shoot me. It was just a lot of chaos, and I thought to myself that it couldn’t be real.”

Mussiett said when the shooter entered the restaurant, he immediately shot a patron at the bar before moving into the dining area and shooting three patrons in a booth and a waitress.

“I just got on the ground and tried to make it back to the office area,” Mussiett said.

Mussiett said the shooter appeared to have a handgun, but Hattiesburg police declined comment on the type of gun used in the shooting. She added that he was not wearing any type of mask, just a hat.

Mussiett said the shooter fled through a door in the back of the restaurant, and a bartender followed him and kept him in sight until Hattiesburg police arrived.

Ricardo Mussiett said six employees and an unknown number of patrons were in the restaurant at the time of the shooting.

The Bishop Shootings

A female shooter was in custody and three are dead. A campus shooting incident occurred about 4:15 pm on February 12, 2010, in Alabama.

Three people were killed and several more injured in the shooting Friday in a science building at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus, university officials said. (Also known as the University of Alabama in Huntsville.)

Trent Willis, chief of staff for Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, said several other people had been shot in addition to the four reported, but he did not have an exact number or their conditions.

Huntsville Hospital spokesman Burr Ingram said the hospital was treating three victims. Two were in critical condition and one was in stable condition. It was not clear if the three included the one injured person university officials announced.

Sophomore Erin Johnson told The Huntsville Times a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from the room.

The shooting happened in the university's Shelby Center, a science building. University police secured the building and students were cleared from it.

The Huntsville campus has about 7,500 students in northern Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line.

The university posted a message on its Web site Friday afternoon telling students the campus was closed Friday night and all students were encouraged to go home. Counselors were available to speak with students.

The shooter has been identified as Dr. Amy Bishop, a Harvard-educated neurobiologist who joined the faculty of UAH in 2003.

Her development with her husband, Jim Anderson, of a "portable cell incubator" placed third in a state-wide competition, and won the couple $25,000 of seed money in a business competition.

Mr. Anderson, also reportedly in custody, is said to be the chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Dr. Bishop's profile has been pulled from UAH's site, but Google's cache reveals her areas of research focussed on the role of gasses on the central nervous system, especially nitrous oxide.

Her lab was working on the development of a "neural computer," the "Neuristor," which would use living neurons—taken either from stem cells or fish.

She also developed the InQ, a "precision instrument designed to increase the precision and consistency of cell growth in laboratory experimentation."

Dr. Bishop has numerous articles in journals to her credit, including studies in the International Journal of General Medicine and Toxicology.

NVCC Shooting

A 20-year-old student opened fire in a Woodbridge, Virginia community college classroom, but did not hit anyone and was arrested in a hallway, police said on December 8, 2009 (on the anniversary of John Lennon's death).

No injuries were reported following the afternoon shooting at Northern Virginia Community College's campus in Woodbridge, about 25 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Jason Michael Hamilton, 20, of Manassas was later charged with attempted murder and discharging a firearm in a school zone and was being held without bond. Whether Hamilton had hired an attorney was not immediately clear.

Prince William County Police spokeswoman Kim Chinn said the student, armed with a high-powered rifle, fired several shots and left the classroom. Officers found him in a hallway where he was cooperative and was taken into custody, Chinn said.

The spokeswoman said the unidentified teacher ducked when the student opened fire.

"When she saw the gun, she hit the floor," Chinn said.

Hamilton did not have the gun when he was arrested, but told police where it was, the spokeswoman said.

Chinn said she didn't know exactly where Hamilton's rifle was found, but it wasn't in the classroom.

Police spokeswoman Sharon Richardson said officers responded about 2:40 p.m. to an "active shooter" situation following reports of a gunman in the main administration building.

The college enacted its emergency lockdown procedures and later issued a statement saying all Woodbridge classes were canceled Tuesday because of the shooting. Some students, faculty and staff were sent to a nearby high school.

All classrooms are in one building and the students were in lockdown until about 5:30 p.m. Swat teams went into each classroom during the lockdown, said Chinn, who didn't know how many students were inside or how many shots were fired.

Biology professor Miriam St. Clair, of McLean, Va., said "we heard a loud noise, it sounded like a desk fell over and we heard another loud pop, we knew it was a gunshot."

St. Clair, 58, said she looked out the window and saw students running. The professor said she told her students to get inside the classroom and they closed the door, which did not have a lock, and barricaded themselves inside by piling about 20 desks against the door, crouching behind other desks in the room.

One of the students called 911 and the operator told them to stay where they were. About 2 1/2 hours later, a SWAT team came into the classroom and told them it was safe.

"We were very frightened," St. Clair said.

Two police cars were outside the suspect's home in an affluent new subdivision, but officers wouldn't let reporters close.

Neighbor Daren Edwards, 38, said Hamilton's parents moved to the subdivision about three years ago and Hamilton lived in the basement. Edwards said he sometimes saw him jogging alone, or with his mother.

"He's always by himself, he's always isolated," Edwards said

Wesleyan Arrest: Jews & Students Targeted (Updates)

May 8, 2009 Update

A man who Connecticut police say sparked two fearful days at a university by killing a student and threatening a campus shooting spree surrendered Thursday night, May 7, 2009, after seeing his photo in a newspaper.

Stephen P. Morgan, 29, was taken into custody about 9:15 p.m. after stopping at a Cumberland Farms convenience store in Meriden, about 10 miles from the Wesleyan University campus.

Clerk Sonia Rodriguez told The Associated Press that she didn't recognize Morgan when he came in and scanned the newspapers. He asked to use the phone but had trouble dialing, so he asked Rodriguez to dial the police department for him.

After he finished his call, Morgan walked outside to wait for police, Rodriguez said. She didn't realize there was anything wrong until several officers arrived and threw Morgan to the ground to arrest him.

When police told Rodriguez that Morgan was wanted for Wednesday's fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich in Middletown, "I got nervous and I started crying," she said. "I just got very, very scared."

Morgan is being held on $10 million bond and is due in court Friday morning.

Justin-Jinich was shot several times inside a bookstore cafe just off campus by a gunman wearing a wig. Authorities have said Morgan and Justin-Jinich have known each other since at least 2007, when Justin-Jinich filed a harassment complaint against him while they were enrolled in a summer class at New York University.

An official with knowledge of the investigation told The AP that police stopped Morgan shortly after the shooting, spoke to him and let him go, only to later realize he was a suspect.

When police confiscated Morgan's car they found a journal in which he spelled out a plan to rape and kill Justin-Jinich before going on a campus shooting spree, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

Wesleyan officials said that police told them that Morgan targeted Wesleyan students and Jews in his journals. Justin-Jinich, of Timnath, Colo., came from a Jewish family, and her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

Morgan's brother Greg told the AP that Morgan wasn't anti-Semitic. His family issued a statement pleading with Morgan to turn himself in "to avoid any further bloodshed."

Greg Morgan did not immediately return calls placed by The Associated Press after police announced the arrest. There was no answer at the home of Morgan's father.

A woman answering the phone for Justin-Jinich's father said the family had no comment Thursday night on Morgan's arrest. She would not identify herself.

Apparently applying the lessons of Virginia Tech, police and administrators locked down the 3,000-student campus and stepped up patrols as authorities launched a hunt for the killer.

"We are all breathing a little easier with this news," Wesleyan President Michael Roth said Thursday night.

Wesleyan officials had told students to stay indoors and staff members to stay home. Most buildings on campus, including cafeterias and the library, were locked Thursday. Normally bustling sidewalks were empty, and police cruisers patrolled the campus of the elite liberal arts school.

In dorms, students in flip-flops, gym shorts and pajama pants shuffled downstairs to pick up box lunches.

Brenna Galvin, a sophomore from Amherst, N.H., said her family was considering bringing her home. "It's hard to know what to do," she said. "Really, we're just trying to keep in touch with people at home."

The university's Usdan Center was opened briefly Thursday night so students could have dinner, but they were asked to return to their dormitories by nightfall. Officials planned to open the university library on Friday and start returning the campus to a normal schedule.

Middletown's only synagogue, Congregation Adath Israel, across the street from the bookstore, was closed Thursday and congregants were considering canceling Sabbath services Friday night and Saturday.

"It was a no-brainer to close the building until we knew more information," synagogue president Eliot Meadow said.

On Thursday afternoon, police got an arrest warrant charging Morgan with murder.

The shooting stirred memories of the Virginia Tech shootings, in which a deranged student killed 32 people and himself. A panel that investigated the 2007 massacre said university officials erred by not acting more quickly to warn students. Police had mistakenly concluded that the first two victims were shot as a result of a boyfriend-girlfriend dispute.

Sebastian Giuliano, mayor of Middletown, a city of 48,000, immediately thought of that tragedy as he saw five police cars race by Wednesday. "Don't tell me it's another Virginia Tech situation," he said.

The shooting occurred early Wednesday afternoon as several hundred students gathered for a concert held annually to allow students to blow off steam before finals. Police and university administrators moved everyone indoors and canceled the concert.

Police gave the all-clear late Wednesday afternoon and said there was no danger, but did an about-face two hours later, warning students to take immediate shelter.

Police said evidence uncovered at the scene prompted the renewed warnings, but they offered no details. Later Wednesday, they released a surveillance photo of the gunman and said they were looking for Morgan, a former Navy man who university authorities said had no connection to Wesleyan.

"Everything we did was based on information we received from Middletown police," Wesleyan spokesman David Pesci said.

There was more confusion when the university posted a photograph purportedly of Morgan on its Web site, only to use a photo of another man. It was replaced Thursday afternoon by two images supplied by police.

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Cornell University professor Stephen Morgan thought it was bad enough that he shares the name of a man accused of murder.

But then an assistant showed him a Web site with a photo supposedly of the suspect. What he saw was a decade-old picture of himself.

The sociology professor's photo was posted on Wesleyan University's Web site along with details of Wednesday's fatal shooting of 21-year-old Johanna Justin-Jinich. The image was then broadcast nationally.

Wesleyan says it got the photo from police. Police say they never released the image.

Morgan thinks the photo was taken for his Massachusetts driver's license when he was a Harvard University graduate student. Wesleyan eventually replaced the photo: The Hartford Courant
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The last day of classes for the year was Tuesday. Final exams are scheduled to begin on Monday.

Morgan and Justin-Jinich had known each other at least since 2007. Police records show she filed a harassment complaint against Morgan when they were enrolled in the same six-week program at New York University. In a complaint filed in July 2007, Justin-Jinich said Morgan called her repeatedly and sent her insulting e-mails.

One of the e-mails warned: "You're going to have a lot more problems down the road if you can't take any (expletive) criticism, Johanna."

Both were interviewed by university police, but Justin-Jinich decided not to press charges.

In a statement read to reporters outside his parents' Marblehead, Mass., home, the Morgans said they were "shocked and sickened by the tragedy" and extended their condolences to the victim's family.

They added: "Steve, turn yourself in right now to any law enforcement agency wherever you are to avoid any further bloodshed.

We love you. We will support you in every way and we don't want anyone else to get hurt."

Penny Wigglesworth, who lives in the same upper-middle-class neighborhood, called them a "model family" and described Morgan as pleasant and polite.

Justin-Jinich would have graduated next year from Wesleyan. She was a 2006 graduate of the Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school outside Philadelphia.

"It's just a tragic irony that her grandmother would survive the Holocaust and she would be gunned down in a bookstore," said Eric Mayer, a religion teacher at Westtown School who was her academic adviser.

Wesleyan officials said a memorial vigil for Justin-Jinich will be at 1 p.m. Friday in a campus courtyard.

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May 7, 2009 Update:

Jews and students at the prestigious US college Wesleyan were warned Thursday to stay indoors as a hunt intensified for the gunman in the slaying of a student at a local cafe.

Police said there were fears that the suspect, still on the loose, may be targeting Jews and students from the university in Connecticut.

"Evidence uncovered overnight suggests that Mr Morgan may be focused on the Wesleyan community campus as well as the Jewish community," said Lynn Baldoni, chief of police for Middletown.

"Investigators have been in contact with Wesleyan University and leaders of the Jewish community, urging both to be extra vigilant," she told a news conference.

College president Michael Roth ordered "all students to remain inside their residence and to remain vigilant." Staff were told not to come to the campus, unless requested to do so.

A notice on the Wesleyan website said the suspect had voiced threats against Jews in his journal.

"Although he apparently had a direct link to the victim but no other connection to the Wesleyan community, we have now been made aware that he expressed threats in his personal journals toward Wesleyan and/or its Jewish students," the statement said.

Johanna Justin-Jinich, the May 6th victim, was Jewish.


************Earlier*******

Middletown, Connecticut police have identified the victim of a shooting at a Wesleyan University bookstore as a student from Colorado.

Police say Timnath, Colorado, native Johanna Justin-Jinich was shot several times Wednesday afternoon, May 6, 2009, by a disguised gunman at the bookstore in downtown Middletown. Police say they are still searching for the gunman, whom they described as a white male with a thin build, who had apparently been wearing a wig as a disguise.

Johanna Justin-Jinich, 20, was a junior at the university. According to reports, she was shot several times while working a shift in the Red and Black Cafe. A gun was recovered from the Broad Street Books store, where the cafe is located.

Middletown police are still looking for the gunman. Mayor Sebastian Guiliano told the Associated Press the shooting "didn't appear to be random."

Police released a photo of the suspect but would not confirm newspaper and TV reports that he is Justin-Jinich's ex-boyfriend.

A wig was recovered at the scene of the fatal shooting at the bookstore near the Wesleyan University campus.

Police have identified the suspect as 29-year-old Stephen Morgan, the Associated Press reported. It's unclear where he lives. A Wesleyan spokesman said he had no known connection to the university.