Before going on a wild, bloody rampage that left four others dead, a Santa Monica gunman — mentally unhinged and apparently angry over his parents’ divorce — stockpiled 1,300 rounds of ammunition, officials revealed Saturday.
The gunman, who would have turned 24 Saturday, was identified as John Zawahri by the Los Angeles Times. Police did not oficially name the shooter Saturday, saying family was out of the country and could not be notified.
[h=4]Facebook[/h][h=4]Santa Monica College shooting victims Carlos Navarro Franco (left) and daughter Marcela (second from left).[/h]
A creepy surveillance photo released by police shows the killer entering Santa Monica College campus, assault-style weapon in hand.
The shooter — who police gunned down in the college library to end the violent outburst — had an encounter with police seven years ago when he was a juvenile, said Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks.
[h=4]Facebook[/h][h=4]The gunman shot at Marcela Franco (left) and Carlos Navarro Franco. Marcela is still alive, but doctors have given her a grim prognosis. Carlos was killed.[/h]
Friday’s violence was clearly planned, she said.
“Anytime someone puts on a vest ... 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’s premeditated," she said.
[h=4]Michael Nelson/EPA[/h][h=4]Surveillance photo shows suspect entering Santa Monica College library.[/h]
Friday’s midday nightmare unfolded over just 10 minutes.
First killed were Zawahri’s father, 55-year-old Samir Zawahri, and his brother, sources told the Times. The gunman left as the Yorkshire Ave. home burst into flames. He then shot one woman, who remained hospitalized Saturday, Seabrooks said, and carjacked another at gunpoint.
[h=4]MICHAEL NELSON/EPA[/h][h=4]A surveillance camera image of the deceased shooting suspect carrying an assault weapon and entering the Santa Monica College campus library.[/h]
RELATED: SANTA MONICA GUNMAN KILLS FOUR, INJURES AT LEAST FIVE OTHERS
Neighbor Tom O’Rourke watched the hijacking unfold, he told the News.
[h=4]STRINGER/REUTERS[/h][h=4]The body of a man believed to be the suspect in a shooting incident at Santa Monica College lay on the sidewalk.[/h]
"I heard the shots and came outside. I saw the gunman dressed all in black holding a rifle down at the corner,” he said.
“The gunman and the woman drove by me very slowly —parade-slow — he had his gun barrel up and pointed at her."
[h=4]Robert Gauthier/AP[/h][h=4]Students and staff evacuate to the north side of campus as police swarm Santa Monica College looking for a gunman who shot numerous people on Friday.[/h]
The shooter made her drive him to the college campus in her purple Mazda hatchback, stopping so he could fire on traffic, police cars and even a city bus.
Once on campus, his path tragically crossed with a West Los Angeles father and daughter, who were at the school to pick up library books, a relative said.
[h=4]Paul Alvarez Jr/AP[/h][h=4]Priscilla Morales was in the library where the gunman opened fire on students. [/h]
Zawahri gunned down Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, in his red SUV in the college parking lot, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Navarro Franco’s 28-year-old daughter Marcela Franco, who was in the passenger seat, was also hit and hospitalized with a grim prognosis, officials and family members said.
"It's just unbelievable. They're just a very good family and didn't deserve this," John Sanchez, a step-brother to Carlos Navarro Franco's wife Leticia, told the Daily News.
[h=4]MICHAEL NELSON/EPA[/h][h=4]A policeman inspects the car of a victim.[/h]
Sanchez, a 78-year-old landscaper who lives downstairs from the Franco apartment in West Los Angeles, said doctors at UCLA Medical Center had told Leticia the shooting left her daughter brain dead.
RELATED: SANTA MONICA COLLEGE EMPLOYEE NARROWLY ESCAPES SHOOTER
[h=4]Jonathan Friolo/for New York Daily News[/h][h=4]Police said a man wearing a bulletproof vest was seen leaving a burning house on Friday.[/h]
"She's devastated," he said. "First she loses her husband, then today she is at the hospital making the decision to take her child off life support. It's too much. She's just completely in shock."
Navarro Franco was a grounds keeper at the beachfront city school, while Marcela had recently graduated, Sanchez said.
[h=4]Jonathan Friolo/for New York Daily News[/h][h=4]The deadly shooting incident reportedly began at this charred house in Santa Monica, Calif.[/h]
“I'm angry. I'm angry at the government for not doing more about people who are mentally ill. And then these sick people get their hands on guns," he said. "It was totally random. He killed them for no reason whatsoever."
The gunman also fatally shot a woman who was collecting recylables outside the library.
[h=4]Jonathan Friolo/for New York Daily News[/h][h=4]The gunman first killed two men, believed to be his father and adult brother, inside their Santa Monica home.[/h]
Inside, he fired at Santa Monica College students huddling in a library “safe room,” Seabrooks said. The students were unharmed.
“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.
[h=4]JONATHAN ALCORN/Reuters[/h][h=4]A part of the rifle used by the shooting suspect in Friday's crime spree is put on display for the media by the Santa Monica Police Department in Santa Monica, California, June 8, 2013. [/h]
[h=4]MICHAEL NELSON/EPA[/h][h=4]An image displayed during a press conference outside the Santa Monica Police Department in Santa Monica shows ammunition discovered belonging to the deceased shooting suspect. [/h]
[h=4]MICHAEL NELSON/EPA[/h][h=4]Santa Monica Police Department displays killer’s arsenal of weapons. At left, victims Carlos Navarro Franco and daughter Marcela. Photo by EPA[/h]
With News Wire Services
[email protected]
[h=4]MICHAEL NELSON/EPA[/h][h=4]Magazines and ammunition belonging to the deceased shooting suspect.[/h]
***
TIMELINE
--- 11:52 a.m.: Firefighters respond to a blaze at a house about a mile from Santa Monica College. About the same time, police receive reports of a carjacking nearby. The gunman’s father and brother are found dead inside the burned house.
--- Minutes later: Gunman shoots and injures one person driving by, and then shoots at a bus.
--- About noon: Shots go off near Santa Monica College. Witnesses see the gunman shoot at an SUV; the driver is hit in the torso and dies. An injured passenger is taken to the hospital.
--- Minutes after noon: Gunman shoots a woman outside of the Santa Monica College library, who dies about three hours later.
--- Inside the library, police exchange gunfire with the gunman and wound him; he later dies.
The gunman, who would have turned 24 Saturday, was identified as John Zawahri by the Los Angeles Times. Police did not oficially name the shooter Saturday, saying family was out of the country and could not be notified.
A creepy surveillance photo released by police shows the killer entering Santa Monica College campus, assault-style weapon in hand.
The shooter — who police gunned down in the college library to end the violent outburst — had an encounter with police seven years ago when he was a juvenile, said Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks.
Friday’s violence was clearly planned, she said.
“Anytime someone puts on a vest ... 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’s premeditated," she said.
Friday’s midday nightmare unfolded over just 10 minutes.
First killed were Zawahri’s father, 55-year-old Samir Zawahri, and his brother, sources told the Times. The gunman left as the Yorkshire Ave. home burst into flames. He then shot one woman, who remained hospitalized Saturday, Seabrooks said, and carjacked another at gunpoint.
RELATED: SANTA MONICA GUNMAN KILLS FOUR, INJURES AT LEAST FIVE OTHERS
Neighbor Tom O’Rourke watched the hijacking unfold, he told the News.
"I heard the shots and came outside. I saw the gunman dressed all in black holding a rifle down at the corner,” he said.
“The gunman and the woman drove by me very slowly —parade-slow — he had his gun barrel up and pointed at her."
The shooter made her drive him to the college campus in her purple Mazda hatchback, stopping so he could fire on traffic, police cars and even a city bus.
Once on campus, his path tragically crossed with a West Los Angeles father and daughter, who were at the school to pick up library books, a relative said.
Zawahri gunned down Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, in his red SUV in the college parking lot, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Navarro Franco’s 28-year-old daughter Marcela Franco, who was in the passenger seat, was also hit and hospitalized with a grim prognosis, officials and family members said.
"It's just unbelievable. They're just a very good family and didn't deserve this," John Sanchez, a step-brother to Carlos Navarro Franco's wife Leticia, told the Daily News.
Sanchez, a 78-year-old landscaper who lives downstairs from the Franco apartment in West Los Angeles, said doctors at UCLA Medical Center had told Leticia the shooting left her daughter brain dead.
RELATED: SANTA MONICA COLLEGE EMPLOYEE NARROWLY ESCAPES SHOOTER
"She's devastated," he said. "First she loses her husband, then today she is at the hospital making the decision to take her child off life support. It's too much. She's just completely in shock."
Navarro Franco was a grounds keeper at the beachfront city school, while Marcela had recently graduated, Sanchez said.
“I'm angry. I'm angry at the government for not doing more about people who are mentally ill. And then these sick people get their hands on guns," he said. "It was totally random. He killed them for no reason whatsoever."
The gunman also fatally shot a woman who was collecting recylables outside the library.
Inside, he fired at Santa Monica College students huddling in a library “safe room,” Seabrooks said. The students were unharmed.
“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.
With News Wire Services
[email protected]
***
TIMELINE
--- 11:52 a.m.: Firefighters respond to a blaze at a house about a mile from Santa Monica College. About the same time, police receive reports of a carjacking nearby. The gunman’s father and brother are found dead inside the burned house.
--- Minutes later: Gunman shoots and injures one person driving by, and then shoots at a bus.
--- About noon: Shots go off near Santa Monica College. Witnesses see the gunman shoot at an SUV; the driver is hit in the torso and dies. An injured passenger is taken to the hospital.
--- Minutes after noon: Gunman shoots a woman outside of the Santa Monica College library, who dies about three hours later.
--- Inside the library, police exchange gunfire with the gunman and wound him; he later dies.