America woke up to yet another university shooting incident on Tuesday when a Korean-American, One Goh (43), allegedly gunned down seven people and seriously wounded three others at a small Christian university in Oakland, California.
The Oakland community, which was the epicentre of violence last year during the brutal police crackdown on the Occupy movement, was in shock after police revealed that Mr. Goh had lined up his victims at Oikos University and shot them “execution style”.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan told CNN that it “was a calculated, cold-blooded execution in the classroom”, adding that Mr. Goh, a former Oikos student, reloaded his gun “after emptying it during the first volley of gunshots and began firing again once he realised that some students were hiding in a nearby classroom.”
Mr. Goh is now in custody. Soon after the shootings he turned himself in to a grocery store employee several miles from the scene of the attack, said media reports quoting Oakland police.
With the search on for a motive, some officials explained that Mr. Goh had been “upset with the administration of the school” and “mistreated” by other students, apparently mocked for his poor English skills. He is said to have embarked on a search for a particular female administrator at the university, who happened to be absent that day. Mr. Goh then reportedly opened fire on others in the vicinity.
The incident had echoes of numerous other school and university shootings, in particular the case of Korean-American Cho Seung-Hui, held responsible for the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007 in which 32 people were killed and 25 wounded.
Indian killed
PTI adds from Washington:
A 38-year-old Sikkimese was among the seven people killed in the shooting, which also left an Indian-American girl injured.
Tshering Rinzing Bhutia of San Francisco was killed when the gunman stole his car outside the school on Monday morning.
Mr. Bhutia was born in Sikkim and lived alone in San Francisco's North Beach neighbourhood. He was studying nursing at Oikos, a small Christian college in Oakland. He also worked at nights cleaning terminals in the city's airport, the Oakland Tribune reported.
Another shooting victim identified was Tibetan-American Sonam Choden, 33, who moved recently to the U.S. from India.
“Many Tibetans, new immigrants, they go to that school to do LPN or CNA,” said Tenzin Tsedup of the Tibetan Association of Northern California.
Other identified victims include 21-year-old student Lydia Sim and 24-year-old Katleen Ping, authorities said.
The Indian-American who was injured was Dawinder Kaur, who was shot in the right arm.
Giving further details of the incident, the daily said Ms. Kaur 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.
