7 killed in campus shooting

An Oakland police officer pauses outside of Oikos University after seven people were killed in a shooting.
An Oakland police officer pauses outside of Oikos University after seven people were killed in a shooting.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A 43-year-old former student of a small Christian university in California opened fire at the school, killing at least seven people and setting off an intense, chaotic manhunt that ended with his capture at a nearby shopping center, authorities said.

Police Chief Howard Jordan said One L. Goh is in custody after he surrendered about an hour after the shooting at Oikos University, which also wounded three. Jordan said police have recovered the weapon they believe he used during the rampage.

"It's going to take us a few days to put the pieces together," Jordan said. "We do not have a motive."

Soon after the shooting, heavily armed officers swarmed the school in a large industrial park near the Oakland airport and, for at least an hour, believed the gunman could still be inside.

Art Richards said he was driving by the university on his way to pick up a friend when he spotted a woman hiding in the bushes and pulled over. When he approached her, she said, "I'm shot" and showed him her arm.

"She had a piece of her arm hanging out," Richards said, noting that she was wounded near the elbow.

As police arrived, Richards said he heard 10 gunshots coming from inside the building. The female victim told him that she saw the gunman shoot one person point-blank in the chest and one in the head.

Tashi Wangchuk, whose wife attended the school and witnessed the shooting, said he was told by police that the gunman first shot a woman at the front desk, then continued shooting randomly in classrooms.

Wangchuk said his wife, Dechen Wangzom, was in her vocational nursing class when she heard gunshots. She locked the door and turned off the lights, Wangchuk said he was told by his wife, who was still being questioned by police Monday afternoon.

The gunman "banged on the door several times and started shooting outside and left," he said. Wangchuk said no one was hurt inside his wife's classroom, but that the gunman shot out the glass in the door. He said she did not know the man.

"She's a hero," he said.

Television footage showed bloodied victims on stretchers being loaded into ambulances. Several bodies covered in sheets were laid out on a patch of grass at the school.

Police spokeswoman Cynthia Perkins said seven people were dead. She did not release any other details about the victims.

Myung Soon Ma, the school's secretary, said she could not provide any details about what happened at the private school, which serves the Korean community.

"I feel really sad, so I cannot talk right now," she said.

Those connected to the school, including the founder and several students, described the gunman as a former nursing student.

Officer Johnna Watson said the suspect is an Asian male in his 40s and was taken into custody at a shopping center.

Watson said most of the wounded or dead were shot inside the building. The industrial park in which the school is located also includes the county food bank and a local Girl Scouts headquarters.

At Highland Hospital, Dawinder Kaur's family told the Oakland Tribune that she was being treated for a gunshot to her elbow.

The U.S. Army Reservist told her family that that the gunman was a student in her nursing class who had been absent for months before returning Monday. The gunman entered the classroom and ordered students to line up against the wall.

When he showed his gun, students began running and he opened fire, her family said.

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