Santa Monica shootings: Students offered counseling

Santa Monica College officials are offering counseling and an opportunity for students and staff to retrieve belongings left behind as they rushed to escape Friday’s shooting rampage.

On the college website officials invited staff and students to attend a gathering from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday on campus. Therapists will be available all day, and local restaurants are donating food.

Belongings left in the library, which the gunman entered, causing many to drop possessions as the they fled, have been tagged and moved to a staging area at 1510 Pico Blvd. They can be claimed between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. after identification and proof of ownership is provided. Belongings left elsewhere may be retrieved from the building in which they were left.

Items will not be released to third parties or friends, college officials said.

Around noon Friday a heavily armed man, allegedly a former student, killed four people and wounded several others during a rampage before he was killed by police, authorities said.

The gunman has been unofficially identified as John Zawahri, 23, who reportedly had a history of mental problems.

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