Schools

Santa Monica College Celebrates Graduation, Remembers Shooting Victims

This post was reported by Erika Maldonado.

Santa Monica College graduates and their families, along with administrators and faculty, paused for a moment of silence during commencement ceremonies Tuesday to remember the victims of a shooting rampage that ended in the college's library.

The momentary pause added a touch of grief to the otherwise joyous celebration at the Corsair football field.

"Our students and employees of Santa Monica College have shown great courage and heroism during these difficult five days,'' SMC President Chui L. Tsang said at the beginning of the ceremony. "We have come together as a community to heal and to pay homage to the victims.''

He said the college was paying tribute "by drawing from this exercise to find strength in our sadness and to turn our anger into action for positive changes in this world.''

The graduates and other attendees observed a moment of silence in memory of the  before the ceremony continued.

Students returned to the campus amid heightened security Monday to continue taking final exams while counselors were on hand to speak with anyone still distraught by Friday's violence, which claimed six lives, including the gunman.   

USC President C.L. Max Nikias was among those speaking at the graduation ceremony. Nikias is no stranger to campus violence. His campus was the scene of a shooting that injured four people during a Halloween party in October 2012, and two USC graduate students from China were shot and killed in a shooting outside the campus in April 2012.

Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson from St. Monica's Church told the students and crowd the ceremony should be "a night of great joy, and no one should or could take that from you.''

"But that joy tonight needs to touch the pain and the struggle and the loss of those victims in our city,'' he said. "And equally important, that pain and that loss needs to touch our joy, our celebration, our blessing tonight. And so, my sisters and brothers, we stand together united in our grief, our fears and our inability to understand this reckless violence. As we strive to console each other, we realize that we are one community. Perhaps the greatest legacy of all from these victims, from this great tragedy, is the unity that it has brought us.''

Authorities have identified the gunman blamed for Friday's violence as John Zawahri, who would have turned 24 on Saturday. He was shot and killed by police in the campus library.

The victims were identified as the gunman's father, Samir Zawahri, 55; his brother, Christopher Zawahri, 24; Marcela Dia Franco, 26, who died Sunday; her father, Carlos Franco, 68; and Margarita Gomez, 68, who was seen regularly on campus collecting recyclables from trash cans.

John Schreiber and City News Service contributed to this report.


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