Washington, April 3: An Indian American student was “lucky enough” to survive after one of her classmates ordered students to stand against a wall and opened an indiscriminate fire, killing seven and injuring three at a religious college in southern California.
Dawinder Kaur, 19, was shot in her right arm near elbow and was nursing her injuries at a local hospital in Oakland, where the shooting incident happened on Monday morning, sending shock waves across the country.
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.
Several of the victims were students of the Oikos University -- a small religious college in this Southern Californian city.
According to Oakland Tribune, Kaur told her family members that the alleged gunman, who had been absent from his class for past several months, suddenly appeared on Monday and ordered all the students to line up against a wall.
“He showed his gun and then the students started running,” Kaur told relatives.
She 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, the daily reported.
“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 Oakland Tribune.
Five people were declared dead on the spot, while two of the five wounded succumbed to injuries at the hospital.
Balvir Singh, Kaur’s father, said that he was lucky that his daughter survived. “We are thankful that God saved her. The gunman should get the full consequences that he deserves for doing this to these people,” he said.
Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune that the shooter was a former nursing student, though he was unsure whether the man had been expelled or dropped.
Oikos University is a Christian university that focuses on nursing.
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