Santa Monica shooter identified by authorities
Los Angeles Police Department officers along with Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies search the grounds of Santa Monica College near the library after multiple shootings were reported near the campus in Santa Monica, Calif., on June 7, 2013.
Twenty-four-year-old John Zawahri has been identified as the Santa Monica shooter, who killed five people during a Friday spree in the Southern California beach city.
Zawahri appears to have murdered his 25-year-old brother, Chris, and his 55-year-old father Samir Zawahri in the family's Santa Monica home and setting it alight, then arming himself and heading to Santa Monica College to begin a rampage lasting slightly over ten minutes, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Read more from GlobalPost: Santa Monica College gunman had mental health issues
Police had had prior contact with Zawahri in 2006 reported CNN, but as he was still a minor at the time, the details of the incident can't be revealed to the public.
It's speculated that domestic violence may have sparked off the shooting — Zawahri's parents had been through a difficult divorce, and friends of the family noted to media that the young man appeared to be fascinated with firearms.
It was also discovered that both Zawahri and a family member had been previously connected with Santa Monica College, as recently as 2010.
The shooting is considered to be premeditated, according to Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks.
"Any time someone puts on a vest of some sort, comes out with a bag full of loaded magazines … has a handgun and has a semiautomatic rifle, carjacks folks, goes to a college, kills more people and has to be killed at the hands of police," Seabrooks said to the Los Angeles Times, "… that's premeditated."
A fifth victim, 26-year-old, Marcela Franco was taken to the hospital in critical condition but died on Sunday.
Franco's father, Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, was killed on Friday while driving his daughter to buy schoolbooks.
"I am saddened to report that Marcela Franco passed away this morning at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center," college President Chui L. Tsang said in a statement posted on the school’s website.
"Her family was with her by her side…. Our deepest sympathies go to the Franco family. At the appropriate time, the college will convene a campuswide memorial."
Several students managed to save themselves by barricading themselves in the college library, Seabrooks told press, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The campus of Santa Monica College is expected to reopen at 7 am on Monday.