Shootings

At Olympic High, Santa Monica's alternative school for students who have struggled in traditional programs, inappropriate behavior is not uncommon. But what a veteran English teacher saw on the computer screen of a student named John Zawahri stopped him cold. The solitary teen who regularly ditched class was surfing the Internet for assault weapons, the teacher recalled Monday. Alarmed, he sent Zawahri to the principal's office. Within days, the police were involved and Zawahri was admitted to UCLA's psychiatric ward.

ARDMORE, Pa. - After he made birdie on No. 15 Saturday, Michael Kim glanced at a scoreboard. The 19-year-old amateur was tied for third at the U.S. Open. "I wasn't looking to see what place I was in or how many shots back I was," he said. "I just thought it was super cool to see my name on that big leaderboard next to the leaders like [ Charl ] Schwartzel , [ Phil ] Mickelson , [ Luke ] Donald , all those guys. " Alas, it didn't last. Kim's bogey-double bogey-bogey finish dropped him to 10th place, five shots behind Mickelson.

A Sacramento man who drove across the country to confront his estranged wife shot and killed her in a church vestibule as services were ending, authorities said. Two other people were critically injured in the attack, which sent worshipers scrambling for safety. Police were searching for Joseph M. Pallipurath, 27, who fled after the shootings, authorities said. About 200 people were inside St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church in Clifton, N.J., when the gunman opened fire, killing Reshma James, 24, and injuring a 47-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man. Bedlam broke out after the shots were fired, churchgoers said.

He's an interesting guy, this coach. Resembles actor Richard Gere. Is said to be the very best in his field. Won NBA championships. Dated Jeanie Buss. Meet Chip Engelland, San Antonio Spurs assistant. The shooting specialist credited with sharpening the strokes of Grant Hill, Tony Parker and, most recently, Kawhi Leonard. Engelland, 52, was a UCLA ball boy in the days of John Wooden and led the City Section in scoring as a senior at Palisades High in 1979. Basketball fans around the Westside mention his name in the same breath as former NBA sharpshooters Kiki Vandeweghe and Steve Kerr.

Law enforcement authorities Saturday were investigating three unrelated shootings that killed two men in Boyle Heights and a partygoer in Watts. Francisco Tomas, 22, died late Friday night after being shot in an apparent gang- related attack, LA. police said. Tomas was walking in the 3300 block of East Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights about 10:45 p.m. with two friends when two men approached and asked where they were from, according to police. The assailants then began shooting and fatally wounded Tomas in the chest.

Gunshots struck five vehicles on a stretch of Interstate 64 west of Charlottesville, injuring two motorists and prompting officials to close nearby schools and increase police presence along the highway. Investigators hunted for two or more people in the shootings, which closed I-64 for six hours for 20 miles from Charlottesville to Waynesboro. Police also had a possible lead on a vehicle used in the shootings: an AMC Gremlin seen on a surveillance camera near a credit union in Waynesboro, where evidence of gunshots was found.

Yesenia Rojas, vibrant in her purple shawl, sang with a voice so powerful it rose above the rest of the procession as they shuffled down the damp Anaheim sidewalk. " Era mexicana. Era mexicana, " they sang with a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe hoisted high, candlelight and street lamps illuminating their way. " Madrecita de los mexicanos. " The singsong serenade lauds the patroness, the mother of all Mexicans. On this drizzly evening, Rojas led the group down Anna Drive, where she and her family have made their home.

An Atlanta-based rapper was fatally shot in the valet waiting area of the Beverly Center mall Monday by a suspect who fled in a silver Mercedes SUV, according to police. Officers later detained a "person of interest" as he approached the ticketing area at Los Angeles International Airport armed with a gun. The shooting occurred about 3:10 p.m. in the parking garage of the popular Westside mall, sending diners in nearby restaurants diving for cover.

Seven Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies have been notified that the department intends to fire them for belonging to a secret law enforcement clique that allegedly celebrated shootings and branded its members with matching tattoos, officials said. The Times reported last year about the existence of the clique, dubbed the Jump Out Boys, and the discovery of a pamphlet that described the group's creed, which required aggressive policing and awarded tattoo modifications for police shootings.

In this Southern city famed for its science and technology, residents are coming to grips with perhaps the most unsettling fact in Friday's campus shooting: The suspect was not a student but a professor. And, it was learned Saturday that she had fatally shot her brother in 1986. Amy Bishop, 45, a neurobiologist and assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, was arrested shortly after the incident and charged with capital murder. She is accused of killing three of her colleagues and injuring three more during a faculty meeting.

ARDMORE, Pa. - Phil Mickelson, who has already wrapped up the father-of-the-year title, was the leader in the clubhouse after the rainy first day of the U.S. Open here Thursday. It was storybook stuff. The golf wasn't bad, either. Mickelson, for the better part of the last two decades among the top golfers in the world, has won four major championships, but never a U.S. Open. Winning one would round out a legacy of his three Masters and one PGA title. Not that he hasn't been close.

It was a "perfect storm" of coincidences that led Debra Fine into a quiet neighborhood in Santa Monica last Friday at the exact moment a gunman set off on a chaotic rampage. A former Disney executive who had quit her job to spend more time with her 15-year-old twins, the 49-year-old Westwood resident was headed to record an audition to submit to the NBC singing competition "The Voice. " Singing, she said, is her passion. With President Obama in town and sections of Sepulveda Boulevard sealed off, Fine headed along the side streets off Pico Boulevard.

Jane Walle was among the hundreds of people who gathered Monday night outside the Santa Monica College library to remember the victims of last week's shooting rampage that shook this seaside city. Like the students, staff and neighbors around her, she paced on the concrete until just after 6 p.m., then slowly began the trek to the football field for an hourlong gathering. But just a few steps into her walk, she stopped short in front of a makeshift memorial strewn across a patch of asphalt.

Margarita Gomez walked the Santa Monica College campus each morning and afternoon, collecting cans and other recyclables to help pay the bills. She didn't have much money, but friends said she regularly saved some of the change she got for her cans and gave it to charity. Her apartment sat across the street from the school, where she was a familiar face. The 68-year-old usually didn't check the college for recyclables on Fridays, her son said. But she was outside the library the day authorities say John Zawahri carried a semiautomatic rifle onto campus and opened fire, striking Gomez before making his way inside the building.

Jurors decided Monday that a gang member should be executed for the slaying of four people, including a 10-year-old boy gunned down from close range as he rode his bicycle along a quiet South Los Angeles street. Charles Ray Smith, 44, stared straight ahead and showed no emotion as the verdict was read in a downtown courtroom. Smith was convicted during a previous trial of taking part in two deadly shootings in 2006, including one that became known as the "49th Street Massacre" in which two men wielding AK-47s opened fire on children and adults enjoying a Friday summer afternoon.

A fifth victim of the Santa Monica shooting rampage died Sunday as Santa Monica College students and staff tried to cope with the violence and prepared to return to the campus Monday. Student Marcela Franco, 26, died with her family by her side at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica College officials announced. Marcela, who had just enrolled for summer classes at the school, and her father, Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, a groundskeeper at the college, were shot in the father's SUV in a campus parking lot. Authorities are still trying to determine what caused John Zawahri, 23, to open fire on Santa Monica streets before ending up on the campus, where he was killed in a shootout with police.

The mystery surrounding last month's slayings of six Pomona residents began to unravel Thursday when police revealed that they had arrested two gang members and charged them with murder in connection with four of the shootings. For several weeks since an alleged gang rampage took the lives of apparently unconnected residents, police reported that they had no suspects, no motives and no leads.

The father of a teenager who killed a 12-year-old acquaintance has pleaded guilty to a felony charge of improperly storing a gun. David Glen Tillotson, 41, of Foresthill must serve five years' probation, do 300 hours of community service and will not be allowed to own a gun. His son, then 15, accidentally shot Justin Kosinski in March, and has pleaded guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter.