SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 8 (UPI) — A Santa Monica, Calif., woman said the gunman who carjacked her forced her to do the driving during a shooting spree that left five dead, including the gunman.
Laura Sisk told the Los Angeles Times she thought for a moment the masked man pointing an assault rifle at her in the middle of the street might be a Secret Service agent assigned to President Barack Obama’s visit to Southern California, but she quickly realized otherwise.
Sisk told the Times the gunman told her, “You are going to drive me to Santa Monica College and let me out.”
She pleaded to take the car and let her go, but her responded: “No. You’re driving.”
At one point, the man shot out the windows of a passing bus and told Sisk to “Go! Go! Go!.”
“So I drove, drove, drove,” she said.
Sisk was released unharmed as promised but the suspect allegedly killed four people and wounded five others before police killed him in an exchange of gunfire in the Santa Monica College library.
The suspect’s identity was not officially released Saturday but the Times said he was believed to the son of a man whose body was discovered inside a burning house not far from the college.
The house was owned by Samir Zawhawi, 55, law enforcement sources told the newspaper, adding the shooting spree might have been the result of a family quarrel.
The FBI Saturday had joined the investigation to help dig into the suspect’s background and learn how he obtained the AR-15 assault rifle used in the rampage, law enforcement sources told the Times.
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