SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The gunman who went on a chaotic rampage, killing four people before being fatally shot by police at a junior college campus, planned the attack and was capable of firing 1,300 rounds of ammunition, the police chief said Saturday.
“Anytime someone puts on a vest, of some sort, comes out with a bag full of loaded magazines, has an extra receiver, has a handgun and has a semi-automatic rifle, carjacks folks, goes to a college, kills more people and has to be neutralized at the hands of the police, I would say that that’s premeditated,” Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said.
Law enforcement sources in Washington and Los Angeles identified the shooting suspect as John Zawahri, who was in his 20s, the Los Angeles Times reported. Other law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the suspect had some mental problems in the past and was angry over his parents’ divorce.
Seabrooks wouldn’t identify him because his next of kin was out of the country. Police had an encounter with him seven years ago, when he was a teen, and she wouldn’t elaborate.
The chief spoke near a display of weapons and ammo recovered from Santa Monica College, where police gunned him down in the library as students were studying for final exams.
Among items on display were surveillance photos of a man in black entering the library with a semi-automatic rifle by his side.
The gunman fatally shot one woman in the head outside the library before entering the building and opening fire as students ran for cover. Students hid in what Seabrooks called a “safe room” in the library and barricaded the door for safety.
“They stacked items found in the safe room against the door, hunkered down and avoided shots fired through the drywall at them while they were in that room,” she said.
The violence, which lasted little more than 10 minutes, started about a mile away when the gunman began shooting at a house, and it caught fire. Two bodies were later found inside.
Two officials said the killings began as a domestic violence incident and that the victims in the home were the gunman’s father and brother. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.
As flames rose from the house, the man, wearing what appeared to be a ballistic jacket, shot a woman passing by in a car and carjacked another woman at gunpoint. He directed her to drive to the college campus, having her stop so he could shoot along the way, police said.
He fired on a city bus where three women were left with minor injuries. One had shrapnel-type injuries, and the two others had injuries not related to gunfire. They were treated at a hospital and released.
The gunman also fired on police cars, bystanders and pedestrians, police said.
From there, the chaos shifted to the college, a two-year school with about 34,000 students located among homes and strip malls more than a mile inland from the city’s famous pier, promenade and expansive, sandy beaches.
In a faculty parking lot, he fired on two people in a red Ford Explorer that crashed through a block wall. The driver was killed, police said, and a passenger was in critical condition after undergoing surgery, doctors said.
“He’s just standing there, like he’s modeling for some ammo magazine,” college employee Joe Orcutt said, “seeing who he could shoot, one bullet at a time, like target practice.”
