7 Dead, 3 Wounded In Shooting At Oakland Religious School; Gunman In Custody
OAKLAND (CBS 5 / KCBS) -- Seven people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting rampage Monday at an Asian religious vocational school in east Oakland; police later detained the suspected gunman.
At a news conference Monday night, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan identified the suspect is 43-year-old One Goh.
Authorities received a 911 call around 10:30 a.m. reporting the multiple shootings at the Oikos University building at 7850 Edgewater Drive, which is located in a large industrial park near the Oakland Coliseum and Oakland International Airport.
According to authorities, Goh is a Korean national and Oakland resident who was a former student at the school.
Goh allegedly shot 10 adults at the university, killing seven, Jordan said at a news conference at police headquarters Monday evening.
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"Today's unprecedented tragedy was shocking and senseless," Jordan said.
Police responded to the private Christian vocational school after the first report was called in at 10:33 a.m., and found "an extremely chaotic scene," Jordan said.
Five shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene while another two victims died at a hospital, according to police.
Three other victims who were injured in the shooting were taken to a hospital and are expected to survive, Jordan said.
Police believe Goh used a handgun, and a weapon was recovered at the scene, he said.
Roughly 35 people were in or near the building when the crime occurred, and officers extracted 13 people from the facility, Jordan said.
Mayor Jean Quan, who also spoke at the news conference, said an officer was injured when he broke a window to get into the building.
Following the shootings, Chopper 5 video showed heavily armed SWAT officers swarming into the building and bloodied victims being carried out on stretchers and loaded into ambulances. Police also evacuated nearby businesses, and agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived at the scene to assist OPD.
Bob Aiello, who works as a union representative at the Teamsters Local 70 facility nearby, said he watched authorities bring several bodies out of the school and cover them in sheets as they laid on a patch of grass.
"They carried a bunch of bodies out - couldn't tell if they were alive or dead," observed Rex Waggener, who also works nearby.
An injured victim told some witnesses that the shooter was a man in her nursing class who got up and shot one person at point-blank range in the chest before spraying the room with bullets.
"One of the people who was inside the building, she was saying there is a crazy guy inside," said witness Brian Snow, who was quoted by the Associated Press. "She did say someone got shot in the chest right next to her before she got taken off in an ambulance."
Angie Johnson, another witness quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, indicated that the injured woman said the gunman "looked crazy all the time, but they never knew how far he would go."
Goh had fled the scene before the officers arrived, according to Jordan.
Goh took one of the victim's cars and drove to a Safeway at 2227 South Shore Center in Alameda, Jordan said.
Shortly after 11:15 a.m., police received reports of a suspicious man near the Safeway who wanted to talk to police.
Jordan said Goh surrendered to Alameda police and is in Oakland police custody Monday night.
He said he could not immediately confirm the names or nationalities of the victims.
Pastor Jong Kim, who founded Oikos University a decade ago, confirmed to the Oakland Tribune that the shooter was a nursing student who was no longer enrolled -- but he did not know whether the man had dropped out or was expelled. From his office, Kim said he heard about 30 gunshots fired from the nearby classroom.
Instructor Lucas Garcia, who was teaching an English class at the time of the shootings, told CBS News that he and his students heard numerous gunshots from a nearby nursing classroom as well as a person yell, "He's got a gun." Garcia briefly went out into the hallway and got a glimpse of the chaotic scene.
"I went back into the classroom and evacuated the classroom. And as we were leaving, we heard more gunshots," he said.
According to its website, Oikos University is a private Christian school offering studies in Asian medicine, theology, music and nursing. Garcia said many of the school's students are Korean.
"We need to pull together to support the Korean community," Quan said. "We need to put our arms around these people and do our best to bring peace back to the city."
Representatives of the Korean Methodist Church in Oakland who attended the news conference said a memorial service has been planned for Tuesday evening.
The service is tentatively scheduled for 6 p.m. at the church, located at 303 Hudson St.
The location may change to accommodate a larger group, Quan said.
"This is the kind of incident that hurts the entire community," Quan said. "We won't understand the situation immediately, and the community will ask questions about it for a long time."
(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
