Students at Oikos University recognized the man who entered their classroom Monday morning as a former nursing student who hadn't been around for a few months.
Then he ordered everyone to get up against a wall, and he drew a handgun.
"The people started running, and he started shooting," said Gurpreet Sahota, who relayed an account from his sister-in-law, nursing student Dawinder Kaur, 19.
Seven people died, and three more were wounded in the shooting at the small Christian university, the Bay Area's worst mass killing in almost 20 years.
Police said the victims are
six women and one man ranging in age from their 20s to 40s. The man was identified as Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, 38, of San Francisco,
killed when the gunman stole his car outside the school Monday morning. Two of the women killed were 21-year-old student Lydia Sim and 24-year-old Kathleen Ping, authorities confirmed.
Police Chief Howard Jordan on Monday evening confirmed the arrest of 43-year-old One Goh, of Oakland, a Korean native and naturalized U.S. citizen. Not much was immediately known about One, but Jordan said he had no known previous criminal record. Officers believe he acted alone.
Following the shooting, One drove Bhutia's car about five miles from the school to an Alameda supermarket, where he announced he had shot people and should be arrested. A security guard detained him until police arrived; a shopper who witnessed a man being handcuffed said he seemed very sedate.
[...]
Kaur, 19, a U.S. Army Reservist from Santa Clara, told relatives the gunman had been a student in her class but had been absent for months before reappearing Monday morning. Some panicked when he drew a gun and began firing; 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.
[...]
About 35 people had been in or near the school at the time of the shooting, Jordan said, and the gunman apparently had fled before the first officer arrived. School officials quickly gave police the gunman's name, photo and home address, to which officers were on their way when One turned himself in at the Alameda supermarket. Bhutia's car was towed from there.
[...]
One's brother, U.S. Army Sgt. Su Wan Ko, died in a traffic accident in Virginia in March 2011, while on special assignment from the George C. Marshall Center, an international security and defense studies institute in Garmisch, Germany. One Goh attended a memorial service in Virginia along with their father Young Nam Ko, 72, of Oakland. Their mother Oak Chul Kim, of Seoul, South Korea, attended as well but has since died, according to published reports. The suspect's other brother, Su Kwon Ko, who lives in Virginia did not answer his phone for comment Monday.
Court records show several court judgments and tax liens against One dating back to 2006, when he lived in Virginia. He owed more than $23,000 in federal taxes at one point and thousands of dollars more to banks and apartment owners.
The most recent judgment, in December, was for $985 to Capital One Bank.
[...]
Bookmarks