A shooter described by police as heavily armed and “ready for battle” fired off at least 70 rounds of ammunition from an assault rifle in the Santa Monica College Library Friday before law enforcement officials were able to gun him down, authorities said.
The shooter, who has not yet been formally identified, was armed with 1,300 rounds of ammunition, a rifle similar to an AR15 assault rifle and an old 44-caliber handgun when he made his way down Pico Boulevard in a shooting spree, killing four people and gravely injuring one.
He entered the college campus and opened fire in the library, attempting to hunt down a group of people who stacked items against the door of a room and hunkered down in an attempt to protect themselves from bullets piercing the drywall around them.
“It’s miraculous that these people were not injured,” Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks told reporters Saturday during a press conference at the Public Safety Facility.
At that point, three officers, two from the Santa Monica Police Department and one from the Santa Monica College Police Department, caught up to him and engaged in a gun fight which he did not survive.
Had the suspect lived, he would have turned 24 years old on Saturday, Seabrooks said.
The entire shooting spree was over within 10 minutes.
Another person of interest who was taken into custody Friday was cleared of blame. He had gone onto the campus in a “poorly timed effort to be a good Samaritan,” she said. The man apparently wanted to rescue his girlfriend, who is a student at SMC.
Seabrooks laid out a chilling scene, describing how the suspect, dressed all in black and armed to the teeth, left a home on the 2000 block of Yorkshire Avenue in flames, shot one woman and forced another to drive him toward the SMC campus.
Firefighters found two bodies in the home, one of which has been identified as 55-year-old Samir Zawahri, a longtime resident of Santa Monica.
As he traveled down Pico Boulevard, the suspect shot indiscriminately, striking a Big Blue Bus and one woman that police said may have been trying to intervene.
The suspect shot and killed a man in a red Ford Explorer, later identified as Carlos Navarro, an SMC employee. Another woman on the SMC campus, described as white and in her 50s, was also shot and killed.
Police will not release the identity of the other victims nor the shooter until next of kin have been notified.
The shooter’s family may be out of the country, said Sgt. Richard Lewis, spokesperson for the SMPD.
Law enforcement officials displayed a black duffle bag, rounds of ammunition, ballistic body armor and an extra receiver for a 223 rifle. Police are not releasing information about the ownership or origin of the weapons. The rifle used in the shooting has been sent to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office for analysis.
They also showed photographs of the shooter entering the library, and of multiple magazines of ammunition surrounded by splashes of blood.
Information continues to trickle out about the shooter, who some outlets have identified as John Zawahri, son of the victim Samir Zawahri.
Seabrooks would not confirm that Samir Zawahri was the shooter’s father, but did say that the suspect had a “familial connection” to the residence and to another residence in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Seabrooks also said that SMPD officers had an encounter with the shooter in 2006, but could not elaborate because he was a minor at the time. He was enrolled at SMC as recently as 2010, police said.
She did say that the murders appeared to be premeditated.
“Any time 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,” Seabrooks said.
Law enforcement still had the campus cordoned off as of Saturday afternoon. SMC Police Chief Albert Vasquez said that officers would be available later in the day to escort those with vehicles and other personal possessions that had to be abandoned during the chaos onto campus to retrieve their property.
The Main Campus will be open for business as of 7 a.m. Monday, Vasquez said, and finals being given on the Main Campus, which were disrupted by the shootings, will take place at that time.
For staff, faculty and students that need help or support in the wake of the incident, counselors will be available on the Bundy Campus between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday, and potentially all month long on the Main Campus.
People may also call a 24-hour Crisis Care Support Line at 1-866-315-7370.
Lines have not been too busy said Bill S., one of the 23 counselors available, but anyone that calls in will receive support and help getting a “more substantial follow up” to the phone call.
“There’s limits to what you can provide on the phone,” he said.
All of the counselors have at least master’s degrees, and have been fully briefed on the details of the SMC shooting, he said.
Community members who live in the Pico Neighborhood, where the shootings took place, are also struggling to make sense of the violence that broke out so near their homes on Friday.
Oscar de la Torre, a school board member, lives 200 feet away from the house in which the bodies were found and could see the flames engulf the building from his bedroom window.
“The whole community is traumatized,” de la Torre said. “People witnessed the shooter. People heard the gunshot blasts, called the police, saw the shooter come out of the house, carjack a person and shoot another person.”
At the same time, de la Torre was proud of the way his neighbors reacted, immediately calling law enforcement officials, providing the license plate number of the stolen car and tending to the wounded.
They’re currently trying to arrange some kind of block party or other community event to heal some of those wounds.
Still, de la Torre struggles with how to explain the events to his young son, who was with him and his wife when they returned home not long after the shooter had continued his rampage down Pico Boulevard.
“It’s disturbing,” de la Torre said.
Any other victims or witnesses are encouraged to call SMPD detectives at (310) 458-8449. If they wish to report information anonymously, call WE Tip at 1-800-78-CRIME (1-800-78-27643), or submit the tip online at http://www.wetip.com. Alternatively, tipsters can contact Crime Stoppers by either calling (800) 222-TIPS (8477) or by visiting http://www.lacrimestoppers.org.
This story originally appeared at smdp.com.
