Monday, June 10, 2013

Santa Monica Shooter Named: John Zawahri

This undated photo provided on Sunday, June 9, 2013, by the Santa Monica Police Department shows John Zawahri, 23, who police have identified as the shooter in Friday's deadly rampage at Santa Monica College. The suspect was shot and killed by authorities Friday after a violent spree that claimed the lives of five people and wounded several others. (AP Photo/Santa Monica Police Department) 


Investigators trying to determine why Zawahri planned the shooting spree focused on a deadly act of domestic violence that touched off the mayhem.

Police said he fatally shot his father and older brother at a home that went up in flames before taking the violence to the streets, which lasted just a matter of minutes until he was shot to death in a chaotic scene at the Santa Monica College library by police.

Authorities did not immediately name the shooter or the two men found dead in the house because next of kin was out of the country and hadn't been notified. That changed Sunday after Zawahri's mother cut her trip short and came back to the country.

Sgt. Richard Lewis, a police spokesman, said she was being interviewed by investigators, who were hoping she could help provide clues about what triggered the violence.

"A big piece of the puzzle just came home," he said.

The killing began as a domestic violence incident when Zawahri killed his father, Samir, 55, and brother, Christopher, 24, in their home near Interstate 10 in a working-class part of town a few miles from the beachside attractions that draw tourists year-round.

The gunman, carrying a duffel back with him with 1,300 rounds of ammo, set the house ablaze, fired shots in the neighborhood and took his rampage on the road.

16 comments:

  1. Interesting last name, considering that it's a variant of the name Ayman al Zawahiri has. Oh how the speculation will fly...

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    1. My speculation is that he was a gun nut. You wanna take that bet again, Greg. You won the last one at about 50 to 1 odds. Care to double down?

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    2. Fifty to one odds? Haven't you learned by now that your assessment of probabilities isn't so good?

      This guy could be a wacko, or he could be a DYI terrorist. As Sherlock Holmes once said in one of the stories, I can come up with several explanations for what happened, but I need facts to establish which one is correct.

      That's the point, Mikeb. Why can't you learn to wait for the facts? You leap to conclusions in the absence of data and expect the rest of the world to go along with your solutions to what you perceive as a problem. That's one of many reasons that we fight you and your ilk.

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    3. Oh what fun!! Can I get a piece of the action??

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    4. That would be DIY terrorist...

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    5. I doubt he's a Jihadi. Some Muslims will use the western forms of first names, like John instead of Yahya, but it's not that common, and I've NEVER seen a Muslim (who was born into a Muslim family) with the name Christopher.

      As for motivation, some early reports said he had mental problems. Time will tell what his motivation was.

      As for your commentary, Mike, You just want to get that notion out there so that it will stick in some people's minds and they won't correct the notion if evidence comes out that points the other way.

      All Greg said on the other instance was that it might not be a pro gun person. Considering the only other ricin attack in the past several years was the other letter, sent only a few months back and as a false flag attack to frame a rival, it was reasonable to suggest that this could have been a copycat, and that we shouldn't take the contents of the letter at face value.

      That was prudence, not betting on long odds. Prudence like looking for all types of suspects in the DC Sniper case would have been rather than wasting time looking for the mythical white supremacist gun nut they thought was committing the murders.

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    6. The family appears to be Christian, but already there are articles on the Internet speculating about this as being Muslim terrorism. Mypoint is that jumping to conclusions in the absence of evidence is a bad idea.

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    7. Who cares what religion he was. I just want to know if he was a gun nut. I'd say yes.

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    8. Yup, Mikeb, that's all you care about. By your standards, I'm a gun nut. I am by my own standards, but I mean something different. By gun nut, I mean an enthusiast. Someone who knows a lot (but certainly not everything) and enjoys guns in themselves, as well as for their utility. I'm also an advocate for gun rights, but a person can be one without being the other.

      What you mean by gun nut isn't clear. You imply a lot, but I'd like to see you give a definition.

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    9. And how do you define "gun nut"? Was the Tuscon shooter a "gun nut" even though he bought his first gun a month before the shooting?

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    10. Well, Gee. Your definition of gun nut is a person who owns, if not guns, then "assault weapons." By your definition, your ally Mark Kelly is a gun nut.

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    11. Gee, your ally, Mark Kelly, is still one of us sick gun nuts by that definition.

      Though many of the nutty shooters wouldn't seem to fit that definition.

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    12. You're right. I guess it's not a simple one to one. How about gun nut is a subset of gun enthusiast since there may be some like Mark Kelly who are not nuts.

      Go over to TTAG. They recently ran a post called "You know you're a gun nut when..."

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    13. But Mikeb, gun nut does not equal person who is a threat to society any more than any other class of enthusiast.

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    14. I agree.

      Those who are a threat to society are a subset of gun nuts which are a subset of gun enthusiasts.

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