OAKLAND, calif. — A former nursing student who opened fire at a small Christian university Monday morning, killing seven and wounding three, first told his former classmates to line up against a wall before pulling a handgun and sending students fleeing in panic, a witness said.
“The people started running and he started shooting,” said Gurpreet Sahota, who relayed an account from his sister-in-law, Dawinder Kaur.
Police sources Monday confirmed they had arrested 43-year-old One Goh of Oakland in connection with the shooting at Oikos University.
Kaur, 19, a nursing student and U.S. Army reservist from Santa Clara, Calif., was shot in her right arm near her elbow, according to her relatives. They said she told them the gunman had been a student in her class who had been absent for months before reappearing Monday and ordering students to line up against a wall. He showed his gun and then the students started running, Kaur later told relatives. She was shot in the arm as she helped a friend who had fallen on the classroom’s floor; she then ran outside and called her brother, Paul Singh.
“She told me that a guy went crazy and she got shot,” Singh said. “She was running. She was crying. She was bleeding. It was wrong.”
Police said five people were dead at the scene; of five others who were taken to the hospital, two later died. Three wounded victims were in stable condition, police said.
The gunman was caught a short time later in an Alameda shopping center, about 5 miles away, police said. Safeway employees who did not give their names said the suspect told a store staffer that he had shot people and needed to be arrested.
Police Chief Howard Jordan said police recovered the weapon they believe he used.
“It’s going to take us a few days to put the pieces together,” Jordan said. “We do not have a motive.”
The chief said Goh is a Korean national who’s a former student of the university. A call to the Korean consulate in San Francisco went unanswered Monday.
Jerry Sung, the university’s accountant, said the school offers courses in both Korean and English to fewer than 100 students.
He said the campus consisted of one building. Sung said many of its students went on to work in nursing and ministry.
Oikos founder and president Pastor Jongin Kim said the shooter had previously been an Oikos nursing student but was no longer enrolled. He was unsure whether the shooter had been expelled or had dropped out voluntarily.
He said he was shocked by the shooting, as the school has a reputation as a religious school.
“They just study Bible and nursing,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
