2 Arrested in Killings of Students From China - New York Times

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€" The police have arrested two young men in the shooting deaths of two University of Southern California graduate students from China, an attack that shocked a campus that has more international students than any other American university.

Javier Bolden, 19, and Bryan Barnes, 20, were arrested on Friday on suspicion of killing the students during an apparent robbery attempt, said Chief Charlie Beck of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Ming Qu, of Jilin, and Ying Wu, of Hunan, were shot on April 11 while sitting in a BMW about a mile from campus. Both were 23 years old.

Their parents filed a lawsuit recently accusing the university of misrepresenting safety at the campus, where nearly one-fifth of the 38,000 students are from overseas, including 2,500 from China.

The motive for the killings was still under investigation, Chief Beck said, but the “evidence points to a street robbery.” Investigators believe that the killings were part of a larger string of crimes, he said.

“Forensic evidence recovered at the scene linked them to two other attempted homicides,” Chief Beck said at a news conference. Evidence directly linked both suspects to the victims, he added.

Chief Beck said that the suspects did not have a long criminal history but that officers think they may have a gang affiliation.

Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa congratulated the city’s police force, which cooperated with the F.B.I. and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the case.

He praised the officers for “diligence in following every lead and investigating every detail.”

Chief Beck declined to provide details of how the suspects were pinpointed. But he said, “This was a crime that shocked this city, and we absolutely left no stone unturned.”

Mr. Barnes was arrested at a home about five miles from campus on Friday afternoon, and Mr. Bolden was arrested a few hours later in Palmdale, Chief Beck said. Both were being held without bail and were scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

The university’s campus is in an urban area a few miles south of downtown. It is across the street from county museums and is not far from the Staples Center arena and a gentrifying area full of Victorian homes. But the area has faced high crime and gang activity.

In the lawsuit, the victims’ parents said the university made false claims about safety in a section of its online application.

The 15-page lawsuit accuses the institution of hiding behind the word “urban” and not saying the campus is in a high-crime area. It also notes that Chinese students in particular would interpret “urban” to mean the university is in a safe area.

A lawyer for the university, Debra Wong Yang, said officials were deeply saddened by the deaths but found the lawsuit to be baseless.

The university and the Police Department announced new security measures after the shootings and promised more video cameras, escorts and patrols.

The department will also send more than 30 additional officers to the division that handles the campus area, Chief Beck said, and the university will pay for four more officers to patrol the students’ residential areas.

In a statement released Friday, C. L. Max Nikias, the president of the university, praised law enforcement officers and city officials.

“The arrest of the suspects in the tragic deaths of our graduate students, Ying Wu and Ming Qu, begins the process of healing and of closing a painful chapter in the life of our community,” Mr. Nikias said.