Korean charged for murder of Pinay, six others in Oakland shooting spree

OAKLAND, California - A Korean former nursing student on Wednesday (United States time) was charged with murder and attempted murder in a shooting rampage that wounded three people and killed seven others, including a 24-year-old Filipina employee of a small Christian school in California. Described by some at the school as an "outsider," One Goh, 43, the suspect in the shootings at Oakland's Oikos University, appeared in court in a red jumpsuit for a brief arraignment where the charges were read to him by a judge. Goh, who hails from South Korea, remained quiet during his arraignment, which lasted for just a few minutes. Goh is accused of opening fire on Kathleen Ping, a Filipina employee of the school, and his former classmates at Oikos on Monday. District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said Goh was charged with seven counts of murder with "special circumstances" that make him eligible for the death penalty, and three counts of attempted murder. Those killed in Oakland included six women and a man, ranging in age from 21 to 53, prosecutors said. The three wounded victims were released from the hospital on Tuesday. Reuters said the national origins of the killed victims were still being sorted out, but police and community leaders said they included immigrants from South Korea, Nigeria, the Philippines (Ping) and two Tibetan refugees, one from India and one from Nepal. The motive for the shooting remained unclear but police said Goh had "anger management" issues. People who knew Goh said the rampage followed a period of personal tumult for him. His brother, a US Army sergeant, was killed in a car accident last March, and his mother died in South Korea about a year ago. Court records showed he was also involved in a dispute with the owners of an apartment in Virginia who had evicted him and claimed he owed back rent. The incident was considered as the deadliest gun violence at a US college since 2007, when a Virginia Tech University student killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before taking his own life.

"The scope of this murderous rampage is unprecedented here in Alameda County," O'Malley told a news conference, adding that prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek a death sentence. "The information we have from some people in the school is that he was a loner, and some would say a loser, but he did not exhibit any behavior that would have alerted anyone" to the possibility of violent behavior, O'Malley told reporters. Goh told investigators that he had gone to the school with a .45-caliber handgun and four fully loaded magazines of ammunition. He was barely visible to courtroom spectators from behind a screen separating him from the rest of the chamber. A second court hearing was set for April 30. Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said on Tuesday that Goh had been cooperative since being taken into custody but was "not particularly remorseful." Hostage-taking, shooting Jordan said the accused gunman had gone to the school intent on attacking a school administrator and classmates he felt had treated him unfairly. The administrator he sought was not there at the time, but six students and the Filipina secretary -- Ping -- were killed. The district attorney said Goh apparently believed the school owed him money. "There is some information that the defendant wanted some money back for tuition he had paid," O'Malley said. Although police previously said Goh had been expelled from the college, O'Malley said he decided to leave the university last November. A police "probable cause statement" filed with the charges in court said Goh admitted to forcing Ping from her office at the school into a classroom at gunpoint. He then shot several people there before taking one of the victim's car keys and fleeing the scene in that person's car. Goh surrendered a short time later at a grocery several miles away, turning himself in to a security guard at the supermarket who called the police. Court documents said he was positively identified by at least three witnesses to the shooting and surviving victims. 'Poor English skills' According to a report of the New York Daily News, Goh was believed to have "opened fire on the campus after coming to the belief he had been picked on and marginalized due to his poor English language skills." Ping's father Liberty said his daughter left behind a four-year-old son, Kayzzer, whose father is still residing in the Philippines, awaiting word on his own petition to move to the US. “We have a very close family, and she loved the family so much. She was the heart of the family, she really was,” Liberty told the New York Daily News. “She was a great mom and a great daughter and a great sister. She was all three in one.” To the news site San Francisco Chronicle, Liberty said his daughter immigrated from the Philippines in 2007 along with her mother, brother, and two younger sisters. Ping studied nursing at Heald College in San Francisco and started working at Oikos eight months ago. Liberty said the tragedy was difficult to accept as it happened inside a Christian school and not on the tough streets of East Oakland, where the family lives. - with Laird Harrison/Reuters/VVP, GMA News