Tibetan, Indian among 7 killed in Oakland shooting spree/ENG

2012. április 4./The Indian Express/Tibet SUN/TibetPress

A 38-year-old Sikkimese and a Tibetan-American who recently migrated from Dharamshala were among the seven people killed by a disgruntled college student who carried out an execution-type killing spree at a religious college in California that also left an Indian-American girl injured.

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said today morning that the victims came from India, Nepal, South Korea, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, 38, of San Francisco, was killed when the gunman stole his car outside the school yesterday morning.

Bhutia was born in Sikkim and lived alone in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, and worked nights cleaning terminals in the city’s airport, the Oakland Tribune reported.

He was studying nursing at Oikos, a tiny Christian college, and also worked in restaurants.

Another shooting victim identified today was Sonam Choden, 33, who moved recently to the US here 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.

Sonam lived with her brother. Before moving to the United States, she had worked in education administration for Tibet’s exiled government in Dharamshala.

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 her right arm near the elbow. She is nursing her injuries at a local hospital in Oakland, where the shooting incident happened yesterday, sending shock waves across the country.

According to the daily, Kaur told her family members that the alleged gunman, who had been absent from his class for past several months, suddenly appeared yesterday and ordered all the students to line up against a wall.

“He showed his gun and then the students started running,” Kaur told relatives.

Several of the victims were students of the Oikos University — a small religious college in the Northern California city.

The alleged suspect has been arrested by the Oakland Police, which local media outlets identified as 43-year-old One Goh, an American of Korean origin.

Police Chief Jordan said the shooter walked into the single-story building, took a receptionist hostage and went looking for a particular female administrator.

The man walked into a classroom, lined up students against a wall and shot them one by one, Jordan said.

“This was a calculated, cold-blooded execution in the classroom,” Jordan was quoted as saying by CNN.

After the shooting, the man left the classroom, reloaded his semi-automatic weapon and returned, he said.

Giving further details of the incident, the daily said 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, Paul Singh.

“She told me that a guy went crazy and she got shot. She was running. She was crying; she was bleeding, it was wrong,” Singh told the Oakland Tribune.

Five people were declared dead on the spot, while two of the five wounded succumbed to injuries at the hospital.