The young man who had killed himself in a dormitory at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando early Monday after an aborted plot for mass shooting has been identified as James Oliver Seevakumaran, with last name suggesting a South Asian descent.
Investigations thus far have led the police to conclude that Seevakumaran, a 30-year-old former student who was under eviction orders, had planned a mass shooting but ended up shooting himself as the police were about to close in.
“It could have been a bad day for everybody here,” said UCF Police Chief Richard Beary. “All things considered, I think we were very blessed at the University of Central Florida.”
Notes found in his room indicated that he had planned an attack, he said, adding Seevakumaran’s timeline to kill people in Tower 1, which houses 500 students, apparently went awry when the authorities responded to a fire alarm quicker than he expected. Police believe that Seevakumaran himself had set off the fire alarm in a bid to get students out of their rooms at that post-midnight moment, enabling him to inflict maximum casualties. A roommate had called 911 to report Seevakumaran had pointed a gun at him when he walked out of his room after the fire alarm went off.
Seevakumaran’s body was found along with two guns and explosives in his room in the dorm that he was continuing to occupy unauthorisedly, although he had ceased to be a student last year. His backpack contained four improvised explosive devices and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, police said.
Described as a “loner”, there were no records of Seevakumaran, other than that he had enrolled for a business major from 2010 to 2012 and was under eviction orders lately for his unauthorized occupation of the dorm.
Seevakumaran was said to belong to lake Mary in Florida, but no immediate details were available about his family.
According to local media reports, the two guns found in the dorm room, including an American-Tech tactical .22 caliber rifle, had been purchased at an Orlando gun store. The first weapon had been purchased in February. The authorities said Seevakumaran had been arrested once in Florida’s Seminole County in 2004, when he was 21, for serving alcohol to a minor. But he was not convicted.
His only other minor brush with the law was in 2008, when he was arrested for driving with a suspended licence.
But he pleaded no contest, so an adjudication was withheld, the local WKMG television station reported.