SEATTLE — Quick Facts:
- Shooting suspect, Aaron Ybarra was involuntarily committed twice
- Ybarra had no connection to the university, police said.
- 1 victim remains in hospital; in serious condition
- Student who died was Paul Lee, 19
- SPU student tackled suspect; others helped hold him until officers arrived
Only one person remains hospitalized after Thursday's shooting at Seattle Pacific University.
On Saturday night, a friend of 19-year-old Sarah Williams told KIRO 7 she is awake, talking a bit, and managing her pain.
Harborview Medical Center spokeswoman Susan Gregg said Williams is in serious condition in the intensive care unit. She underwent a five-hour surgery for chest and abdominal wounds from a shotgun blast. Gregg said 24-year-old Thomas Fowler was released Friday. He had pellet fragment wounds to his neck and chin.
Nineteen-year-old Paul Lee died Thursday after arriving at the hospital. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray identified Lee, saying he was a "Korean-American student with a bright future."
SPU President Daniel J. Martin said Lee’s professors described him “as always positive, and with a great wit. His sense of humor was contagious; he was outgoing and well loved by others. Paul was also known for his deep faith.”
A man who said he was a friend of the suspect in the SPU shootings told KIRO 7 that suspect Aaron Ybarra "seemed a little bit on the crazy side."
Jason Wells said he had known Ybarra, 26, for six or seven years
and was shocked when he heard the news.
See photos from the shooting scene here
"It just makes me ill. I didn't think he'd be capable of something like that,” said Wells.
On Friday, a judge ordered Ybarra held without bail. He continues to be held under suicide watch. "He is cognizant of the suffering of the victims and their families and the entire Seattle Pacific community,"said his attorney, Ramona Brandes. "He is sorry."
In 2010, Ybarra called 911 to report "a rage inside him" and said he wanted to hurt himself and others, according to a police report of the incident. Two years later, officers responded again — this time finding him lying in the middle of the street in front of his suburban Mountlake Terrace home, ranting drunkenly for a SWAT team "to get him and make him famous."
The rage and thirst for notoriety may have got the better of him Thursday. Police say he stormed into an SPU building armed with a shotgun and more than 50 shells. It remained unclear why Ybarra targeted the private Christian university. Ybarra wasn't a student there, police said.
Praise poured in for Jon Meis, the 22-year-old building monitor who subdued the gunman.
"I'm proud of the selfless actions that my roommate, Jon Meis, showed today taking down the shooter," fellow student Matt Garcia wrote on Twitter. "He is a hero."
Click here to read the story of that man, Jon Meis, who is being called a hero by classmates.
Meis, a dean's list electrical engineering student, was emotionally anguished but not injured in the shooting, Gregg, of Harborview Medical Center, said Friday. He was treated there and released.
Fowler’s friend, Nikki Hallberg, is a teaching assistant in a class attended by Williams. Hallberg said she was supposed to be walking through the doors of Otto Miller Hall when the gunman opened fire. Instead, she was with an out-of-town visitor.
Hallberg said she has been coming to sit on the sidewalk every day since, being close to her second home, Otto Miller Hall.
Dozens of other students and members of the community have come to a vigil with candles and flowers at the corner of 3rd Avenue West and West Nickerson Street. Bible verses and words of encouragement have been written in chalk across the sidewalk.
Meanwhile, cleaning crews have begun to cross the caution tape to work inside the Otto Miller Lobby where the shooting took place. Final exams scheduled in that building have been moved to other locations.
Read first day coverage of the shooting here.
Thursday's shooting at Seattle Pacific University was the first fatal shooting at a Seattle school since April 2, 2007. In that case, Rebecca Griego was killed by her ex-boyfriend who then killed himself.
Other mass shootings in Seattle include:
-- On May 30, 2012, Ian Stawicki pulled out a gun at Cafe Racer and killed four people before killing a 52-year-old woman in a carjacking. Stawicki killed himself a short time later.
-- In July 2006, Naveed Haq drove to Seattle from Pasco in eastern Washington, forced his way into the office of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and killed one woman and wounded five others. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
-- In 1983, 13 people were massacred at the Wah Mee gambling club in the International District. Two men were convicted of murder and a third man was convicted of robbery and assault.
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