Santa Monica Gunman Planned Attack, Had Rifle & 1,300 Rounds Of Ammunition

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Police investigating why a heavily armed gunman plotted a rampage that killed four people and wounded several others were focused Saturday on how the violence began: directed at his own family.
What started as domestic violence led to a chaotic street shooting spree and ended less than 15 minutes later in a college library where the gunman was killed Friday by police as students studying for finals ran for cover or hunkered down to avoid whizzing bullets.
Investigators were looking at family connections to find a motive because the killer's father and brother were the first victims, an official briefed on the probe who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly told The Associated Press.
The killer, who died a day shy of his 24th birthday, was connected to the home that went up in flames after the first shootings, said Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks. She refused to elaborate or name the suspect because a surviving family member was out of the country and couldn't immediately be notified.
At an afternoon news conference next to the weapons and ammo found at multiple crime scenes, Seabrooks said the "cowardly murderer" planned the attack and was capable of firing 1,300 rounds.
"Any time someone puts on a vest, of some sort, comes out with a bag full of loaded magazines, has an extra receiver, has a handgun and has a semi-automatic rifle, carjacks folks, goes to a college, kills more people and has to be neutralized at the hands of the police, I would say that that's premeditated," she said.
The killer had a run-in with police seven years ago, but Seabrooks wouldn't offer more details because he was a juvenile at the time.
His father, Samir Zawahri, 55, brought his family to the neighborhood of small homes and apartment buildings tucked up against Interstate 10 in the mid-1990s, according to property records.
Not long after arriving on Yorkshire Avenue, the couple went through a difficult divorce and split custody of their two boys, said Thomas O'Rourke, a neighbor.
"It was not an easy breakup," O'Rourke said. "It was a bitter divorce."
When the sons got older, one went to live with his mother while the other stayed with the father.
"The father was a very nice gentleman," O'Rourke said. "But the boys just kind of kept to themselves. Didn't really socialize with any of the neighbors."